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THE IRISH -AMERICAN LIBRARY. 

VOL. I. 

Eraisfl Misrule in Irelai. 

A COURSE OF LECTVUES, 



DELIVEKED BY THE 



Very Rev. THOMAS N. BURKE, 0. R, 



IN IlEPLY TO 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, Esq. 






^^^lo / ;^ J • '^ fCy/ 



CONTAINING A REVIEW OF THE SO-CALLED "BULL'" OF ADRIAN IV., BY THE MOST 

REV. P. H. MORAN. BISHOP OF OSSOKY ; AND " AN ANALYSIS OF 'THE 

REBELLION OF 1641," BY MATHEW CAREY. 



JV£JV YORK: 
LYNCH, COLE & IMEEHAN, 57 MURRAY STREET, 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1872, bt 

LYNCH, COLE & MEEHAN, 

IN THE Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



THE LIBRARY 

OF CONOKi -^ 

WASHING: 



Poole & Maclauchlan, 

printkks and bookbinders, 

205-213 I£asi X2.tk St. 



INTRODUCTION'. 



The idea of an " Irish- American Library," similar to the 
** Library of Ireland," which Davis originated for his and our native 
land, suggested itself to us many years ago, and would have been 
put into practical execution before now, but that circumstances did 
not permit us to subtract from other and more pressing duties the 
time and personal attention that were required to make the experi- 
ment not only successful, but worthy of the National idea it would 
represent. The necessity of some such collection of works relating* 
to our people, — in their connection with their native and adopted 
countries, — has, however, never been absent from our mind. And 
recent events have so strongly demonstrated the urgency of that 
need, that our resolution was at once taken to do what lay in our 
power to supply the want, and at least to make a beginning of what 
may hereafter be a work of some consequence to our people in this 
New World. The Irish-American element, at the present day, in 
this Republic, is second to no other in importance as a component 
portion of the community. Its status in the history of the coun- 
try, from the earliest dates of which we have any authentic or reli- 
able records, has never been insignificant. Yet, with the exception 
of two volumes (both the work of men who, however able, were 
very imperfectly acquainted with the subjects on which they 
treated), we have met no work that even pretended to deal with the 
connection of the Irish race with this Hepublic, or preserve to futurity 
the record of what Irish- Americans have done, and are doing, for 
the advancement of the land in which so many of them have 
found citizenship and hospitable welcome. Yet this deficiency does 
not spring from lack of material fit for authentic history. Probably 
no other portion of the community possesses a richer store of materials 
for a creditable history than can b,e produced by the Irish branch of 



4 INTEODUCTION, 

the great Celtic family, which has been transplanted to this North 
American Continent. But, unfortunately, this mass of information, — 
invaluable to us as an essential portion of our title-deeds to the cit- 
izenship of the United States, — has lain undeveloped and unused; 
hidden away in family records, or only finding access to the hght in 
the uncertain and perishable form of newspaper publications. The 
knowledge of many important facts relating to the share which 
Irishmen and their immediate descendants have had in the estab- 
lishment of this Republic, and its subsequent progress to prosperity 
and greatness as a nation, is rapidly passing away with the men of 
the last generation, who were familiar with the story. And it is 
only occasionally, when some accidental circumstance elicits a detail 
of those facts, that the world is apprised how, in one of the greatest 
revolutions by which the political relations of human society have 
ever been influenced, the children of that little island in the far-off 
ocean, which England has been so assiduously, but vainly, endeavor- 
ing to shut out from the gaze of mankind, played an important part, 
and left their mark worthily upon the past of their adopted country. 
As an instance of the historical losses to which we have been liable 
from the want of any permanent form of record appertaining to our 
people in this country, we may cite the writings and speeches of the 
adopted son of the great Washington — the late George Washing- 
ton Parke Custis. That eminent gentleman, — one of the best 
representatives of that generation, — the first-bom of the Republic, — 
whose patriotism, genius, and high integrity made the American 
name illustrious, and compelled the respect and admiration of even 
hostile critics, — that eminent gentleman thought so highly of our 
people, for the share they had taken in the emancipation of his 
native land, that he lost no opportunity of giving expression 
to his favorable opinion; and, in his latter days, he claimed as 
one of his most cherished titles, that by which he had distin- 
guished himself as '' The Old Orator of Ireland." Yet in his Biog- 
raphy (published some years since, by one of his surviving descend- 
ants) not one word is mentioned of all that he has said or written in 
behalf of the country and the people in whose fate he took so deep 
an interest ; and for the testimony which he so nobly bears to the 
part played by the Irish, in the great struggle for the independence 
of these States, we are indebted to the columns of an extinct and 
almost forgotten journal, and to the painstaking care and research 
of a patriotic Irish- American, IVIichael Hennessy, Esq., of Brook- 



INTRODUCTION, 5 

lyn, who, with a zeal and perseverance that merit the grateful 
recognition of his f ellow-countr;^Tiien, has collected and made avail- 
able a vast amount of references and authorities, which, to the 
student of Irish history, are invaluable, and in this country would 
be unattamable, were it not for the excellent literary taste and pa- 
triotic spirit which impelled Mr. Hennessy to devote himself to the 
congenial work of concentrating and preserving them. 

There are many interesting narratives now existing in no more 
permanent form than that of an occasional newspaper file, or 
"scrap-book," that would in a few years, perhaps, be of the 
highest value to the descendants of the men by whom those events 
of history have been acted out. To rescue from oblivion, and place 
within the reach of all our people, as much as possible of those rec- 
ords relating to our race in this hemisphere, shall be the mission of 
" The Imsn- American Library." There are also many splendid 
contributions, of oratory, song, and poetic fiction, with Avhich Irish 
genius has enriched the hterature of America ; and with some of 
these we design, also, to lighten, and, as it were, beautify, the dryer 
but more important details of current history. The successive vol- 
umes of the " Library " shall be issued as rapidly as the matter com- 
prising them can be properly collated and arranged. 

In selecting for the first issue of this series the lectures of Father 
Burke in refutation of the sophistries of the English historian 
Froude, we have been influenced not merely by the intriasic merit 
and beauty of those discourses, and their value as a defence of our 
national character, but also by the consideration of that tendency of 
the American mind which impels it to deal immediately and directly 
with what is present^ and to leave the remote past for more leisurely 
consideration. The value of these lectures, both as a defence of 
our people against a most flagrant attack, and as a future source of 
reference in relation to many important portions of our history, will 
be materially enhanced by the Appendix which we have added, "and 
which contains all the most authentic historical quotations relatiag 
to the matters which IVIr. Froude has so artfully misrepresented or 
mystified. 

The importance and reliability of these historical notes may be 
judged from the fact that it was from the works from which they 
are extracted (most of which have long been out of print, ) O'Con- 
nell principally composed his celebrated "Memoir on Ireland," 
which has since been a hand-book for Irish national reference. We 



6 INTEODUCTION, 

have endeavored to place those portions of them which bear upon 
the subject-matter of the Froude controversy in the shape most 
available for the general mass of readers, who may not have leisure 
or opportunity to hunt up these references for themselves ; in which 
view they add materially to the value of the work ; and may, per- 
haps, be productive of further good by stimulating some readers to 
a more careful study of the facts of Irish history, — a correct know- 
ledge of which is so essential in repelling attacks on our national 
reputation, such as that projected by our latest English assailant, 
and so happily met and defeated by the great Irish Dominican. 



ENGLISH IISEULE m lEELAND. 



FIRST LECTUEE. 

{Delivered in the Academy of Music ^ Kew York^ Nov. 12, 1872.) 

NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a strange fact that tlie 
old battle that has been raging for seven hundred years 
should continue so far away from the old land. The ques- 
tion on which I am come to speak to you this evening is 
one that has been disputed at many a council . board — one 
that has been disputed in many a Parliament, one that has 
been disputed on many a well-fought field, and is not yet de- 
cided — the question between England and Ireland. Among 
the visitors to America, who came over this year, there was 
one gentleman, distinguished in Europe for his style of writ- 
ing, and for his historical knowledge, — the author of several 
works, which have created a profound sensation, at least for 
their originality. Mr. Froude has frankly stated that he 
came over to this country to deal with England and the 
Irish question, viewing it from an English standpoint ; that, 
like a true man, he came to make the best case that he 
could for his own country ; that he came to state that case 



8 , EFOLISH MISRULE m IHELAND, 

to the American public, as to a grand jury, and to demand 
a verdict from them, the most extraordinary that ever yet 
was demanded of any people, — namely, a declaration that 
England was right in the manner in which she has treated 
my native land for seven hundred years. 

It seems, according to this learned gentleman, that we 
Irish have been badly treated (that he confesses) ; but he 
puts in as a plea that we only got what we deserved. It is 
true, he says, that we have governed them badly ; the reason 
is, because it was impossible to govern them rightly. It is 
true that we have robbed them ; the reason is, because it was a 
pity to leave them their own, — they made such a bad use of 
it. It is true that v/e have persecuted them ; the reason is, 
persecution was the fashion of the time and the order of the 
day. On these pleas there is not a criminal in prison to- 
day, in the United States, that should not immediately get 
his freedom by acknowledging his crime, and pleading some 
extenuating circumstances. 

Our ideas about Ireland have been all wrong, it seems. 
Seven hundred years ago, the exigencies of the time de- 
manded the foundation of a strong British empire. In 
order to do this, Ireland had to be conquered ; and Ireland 
was conquered. Since that time (according to Mr. Froude,) 
the one ruling idea in the English mind has been to do all 
the good they could to the Irish. Their legislation and 
their action have not been always tender, but they were al- 
ways beneficent ; they were sometimes severe ; but they were 
severe to us for our own good : and the difficulty of England 
has been, that the Irish, during all these long hundreds of 
years, have never understood their own interests, nor known 
what was for their own good ! JVoWy the American mind is 
enlightened ; and henceforth no Irishman must complain of 
the past in this new light in which Mr. Froude puts it be- 
fore us ; and the amiable gentleman tells us, moreover, that, 



NOBMAN mVASIOJS' AND MISRULE. 9 

what has been our fate in the past, he greatly fears we must 
reconcile ourselves to in the future. 

Mr. Froucle comes to tell us his version of the history of 
Ireland, and he also comes to solve Ireland's difficulty, and 
to lead us out of all the miseries that have been our history 
for hundreds of years. When he came, many persons ques- 
tioned what was the reason or motive of his coming. I 
have heard people speaking all around me, assigning to the 
learned gentleman this motive or that. Some persons said 
he was an emissary of the English Government ; that they 
sent him here because they were beginning to be afraid of 
the rising })ov/er of Ireland in this great nation ; that they 
saw here eight millions of Irishmen by birth, and perhaps 
fourteen millions Irish by immediate descent ; they knew 
enough of the Irish to know that the Almighty God blessed 
them always with an extraordinary power, not onl}^ to pre- 
serve themselves, but to spread themselves ; and that, in a 
few years, not fourteen, but fifty millions of Irish blood and 
of the Irish race would be in this land. According to those 
Avho thus surmised, England wants to check the sympathy of 
the American people for their Irish fellow-citizens ; and it 
was considered that the best way to effect this was to send 
a learned man with a plausible story to this country, — a man 
with a singular power of viewing facts in i\iQ light in which 
he wished himself to view them, and in that light to put 
them before others ; — a mr.n with an extraordinary power 
of so mixing up these facts, that many simple-minded peo- 
ple will look upon them as he puts them before them ; and 
whose mission it was to alienate the mind of America from 
Ireland to-day, by showing what an impracticable, obstinate, 
accursed race we are. 

Others, again, surmised that the learned gentleman came 
for another purpose. They said : "England, is in the hour 
of her weakness ; she is tottering fast, and visibly, to her 



10 ENGLISH MISRULE US' IRELAND. 

ruin. Tlie disruption of that old empire is visibly approacli- 
ing. She is to-day cut off, without an ally in Europe. 
Her army is a cipher; her fleet — according to Mr. Keed, 
the best authority on this great question — is nothing to be 
compared witl^ the rival fleet of the great Kussian power 
that is growing up beside her. With France paralyzed by 
her late defeat, England lost her best ally. The three Em- 
perors, the other day, they said, contemptuously ignored her, 
and settled the affairs of the world without as much as men- 
tioning the name of that kingdom that was once so powerful. 
Her resources of coal and iron a.re failing ; her people are 
discontented ; and she shows every sign of decay." Thus did 
some persons argue that England was anxious for an Ameri- 
can alliance; for they said: ''What would be more natural 
than that the old and tottering empire should wish to lean 
upon the strong, mighty, vigorous young arm of America? " 

I have heard others say that the gentleman came over on 
the invitation of a little clique of sectarian bigots in this, 
country ; men who, — feeling that the night of religious big- 
otry and sectarian bitterness is fast coming to a close before 
the increasing light of American intelligence and education, 
— would fain prolong the darkness by an hour or two, by 
whatever help Mr. Froude could lend them. But I protest 
to you, gentlemen, to-night, that 1 have heard all these mo- 
tives assigned to this learned man, without giving them the 
least attention. I believe Mr. Froude's motives to be sim- 
ple, straightforward, and patriotic. I am willing to give 
him credit for the highest motives ; and I consider him per- 
fectly incapable of lending himself to any base or sordid 
proceeding, from a base or sordid motive. 

But, as the learned gentleman's motives have been so 
freely criticised, and, I believe, in many cases misinter- 
preted, so, my own motives in coming here to-night, to an- 
swer him, may, perhaps, be misinterpreted or misunderstood, 



NOBMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. H 

unless I state tliem clearly and plainly. As he is said to 
come as an emissary of the English Government, I may be 
said to appear here, perhaps, as an emissary of rebellion or 
revolution. As he is supposed by some to have the sinister 
motive of alienating the American mind from the Irish cit- 
izenship of these States, so I may be suspected of endeav- 
oring to excite religious or political hatred. Now, I protest 
that these are not my motives. I come here to-night, sim- 
ply to vindicate the honor of Ireland and her history. I 
come here to-night lest any man should think that, in this 
our day, — or in any day, — Ireland is to be left without a son 

who will speak for the mother that bore him 

. ... And I hold that Mr. Froude is unfit for the task 
which he has undertaken, for three great reasons. First of 
all, because I find, in the writings of tliis learned gentleman, 
that he solemnly and emphatically declares that he despairs 
of ever finding a remedy for the evils of Ireland, and that 
he gives it up as a bad job. Here are his w^^rds, written in 
one of his essays a few years ago : 

'' The present hope is that by assiduous justice, that is to 
say, by conceding everything that the Irish please to ask, we 
shall disarm their enmity, and convince them of our good 
will. It may be so. There are persons sanguine enough 
to hope that the Irish will be so moderate in what they de- 
mand, and the English so liberal in what they will grant, 
that at last we shall fling ourselves into each other's arms, 
in tears and mutual forgiveness. I do not share that expec- 
tation. It is more likely that they will push their importu- 
nities, till at last we turn upon them, and refuse to yield 
further. There will be a struggle once more ; and either the 
emigration to America will go on, increasing in volume till 
it has carried the entire race beyond our reach, or, in some 
shape or otlier, they ivill again have to he coerced into sub- 
mission.^'* 

Banish them or coei'ce them ! There is the true En^lisl> 



12 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

man speaking ! My only remedy, he emphatically says, my 
only hope, my only prospect of a future for Ireland is, let 
them go to America : have done with the race altogether, 
and give ns Ireland, at last, such as we have labored to 
make it for seven hundred years — a desert and a solitude. 
Or, if they remain at home, they w^ill have to be coerced 
into submission. I hold, that that man has no right to come to 
America, to tell the American people, or the Irish in Amer- 
ica, that he can describe the horoscope of Ireland's future. 
He ought to be ashamed to do it, after uttering such words 
as those. 

The second reason why I say he is unfit for the task of 
describing Irish history, is because of his contempt for the 
Irish people. The original sin of the Englishman has ever 
been his contempt for the Irish. It lies deep, though dor- 
mant, in the heart of almost every Englishman. The aver- 
age Englishman despises the Irishman, and looks down upon 
him as a being almost inferior in nature. Nov/, I speak not 
from prejudice, but from an intercourse of years, for I have 
lived among them. I have known Englishmen, — amiable, 
gentle, religious, charming characters, — who would not, for 
the Vf hole world, wilfully nourish in their heart a feeling of 
contempt for any one — much less express it in words : and 
3^et I have seen even these manifest in a thousand forms that 
contempt for the Irish which seems to be a part of their very 
nature. I am sorry to say that, in respect to this feeling, I 
can make no exception of Catholic or Protestant among the 
English. I mention this not to excite animosity, not to create 
bad blood or bitter feeling. Ko : I protest this is not m}^ 
meaning. But I mention this because I am convinced it lies 
at the very root of that antipath}^ and hatred between the 
English and Irish, which seems to be incurable. And I 
verily believe, that, until that feeling is destroyed, you never 
can have a cordial union between the two countries ; and 



NOBMAN INVASIOJSr AJS'D MISRULE, 13 

the only way to destroy it is to raise Ireland, so by justice 
and by home legislation, that her people will attain to sucli 
a position, as to enforce and command the respect of their 
English fellow-citizens. 

Mr. Froude, himself (who, I am sure, is incapable of any 
ungenerous sentiment, towards any man, or any people,) is 
an actual living example of that feeling of contempt of 
which I speak. In November, 18G5, this learned gentleman 
addressed a Scottish assembly, in Edinburgh. The subject 
of his address was the effect of the Protestant Eeformation 
upon the Scottish character. According to him, it made 
the Scots the finest people on the face of the earth. Origi- 
nally fine, they never got the last touch, — that made them, 
as it were, archangels amoiig men,— until the holy hand of 
John Knox touched them. On that occasion the learned 
gentleman introduced himself to his Scottish audience in 
the following w^ords : — 

" I have undertaken to speak, this evening, on the effects 
of the Eeformation in Scotland, and I consider myself a 
very bold person to have come here on any such undertaking. 
In the first place, the subject is one with which it is pre- 
sumptuous for a stranger to meddle. Great national move- 
ments can only be understood properly by the people whose 
disposition they represent. We say, ourselves, about our 
own history, that only Englishmen can properly comprehend 
it. It is the same with every considerable nation. They 
work out their own political and spiritual lives through 
tempers, humors, and passions peculiar to themselves : and 
the same disposition which produces the result is required 
to interpret it afterwards." 

Did the learned gentleman offer any sucli apology for 
entering so boldly on the discussion of Irish affairs ? Oh, 
no ! There was no apology necessary. He was going to 
speak only of the " mere Irish." There was no word to 
express his fear that, perhaps, he had not understood their 



14 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAITB. 

character, or the subject of which he was about to treat. 
There was no apology to the Irish in America, — the four- 
teen millions before whom he so boldly told his stor}^, en- 
deavoring to hold them up as an irreligious, licentious, 
contentious, obstinate, ungovernable race. ISTone at all. It 
w^as not necessary ; they were only Irish ! If they w^ere 
Scotch, how the learned gentleman would have come with 
a thousand apologies for his presumption in venturing to 
approach such a delicate subject as a delineation of the 
sweet Scotch character, or anything connected with it ! 

What, on the other hand, Is his treatment of the Irish ? 
I have in this book before me the words that came from his 
pen : and I protest, as I read them, I felt every drop of my 
Irish blood boiling in my veins. I felt how bitter w^as the 
taunt when he said : — '' They may be good at the voting 
booths, but they are no good to handle the rifle !" He 
compares us, in this essay, to a pack of hounds; and he 
says : — 

'^ To tell Ireland to go in peace and freedom would be the 
same as if a gentleman addressed his hounds, and said, * I 
give you yovir freedom : now, go out and act as you please.' 
It is needless to say that, after worrying all the sheep in the 
neighborhood, they would end by tearing each other to 
pieces." 

I deplore this feeling. The man who is possessed by it 
can never understand the philosophy of Irish history. 

Thirdly, Mr. Froude is utterly unfit for the task of delin- 
eating or interpreting the history of the Irish people, because 
of the more than contempt, — the bitter hatred and detesta- 
tion, — in which he holds the Catholic clergy and the Catholic 
religion. In this book before me, he speaks of the Catholic 
Church as an '' Old Serpent, whose poisonous fangs have 
been drawn from her;" — as a ^^ Witch of Endor, mumbling 
curses to-day because she cannot burn at the stake and shed 



NOBMAI^ USfVASION AND MISRULE. 15* 

blood as of old." He most unfairly charges the Church with 
and makes her responsible for the French massacre of St. 
Bartholomew's Day ; for the persecutions and deaths which 
originated from the revolt of the Netherlands, against the 
Duke of Alva, under Philip II. ; for every murder and 
butchery that has been committed, he says, with the virus 
of the most intense prejudice, that the Catholic Church lies 
at the bottom of them all, and is responsible for them. The 
very gentlemen that welcomed him and surrounded him 
when he came to New York, gave him plainly to understand 
that, where the Catholic religion is involved, where a favor- 
ite theory is to be considered, or a favorite view has to be 
proved, they do not consider him as a reliable or trustwor- 
thy witness or historian. Not, I again de- 
clare, that I believe this gentleman to be capable of a lie. I 
do not. I believe he is incapable of it. But wherever 
prejudice such as his comes in, it distorts the most well- 
known facts for its own purpose. Thus, the gentleman 
wishes to exalt Queen Elizabeth by blackening the character 
of Mary Queen of Scots ; and in doing this he has been 
convicted, by a citizen of Brooklyn, of putting his own 
words as if they were the words of ancient chronicles, and 
ancient laws and deeds and documents ; and the taunt has 
been flung at him : " Mr. Froude has never grasped the 
meaning of inverted commas." 

Henry YIIL, of blessed memory, has been painted by 
this historian as a most estimable man, — as chaste as a monk. 
Bless your souls ! you are all mistaken about him ! A man 
that never robbed anybody ! burning with zeal for the public 
good ! His putting away his wife, and taking young Anna 
Boleyn to his embraces ! — oh ! that was a chaste anxiety for 
the public welfare. All the atrocities of this monster in 
human shape melt away under Mr. Fronde's eyes; and 
Henry VIII. rises before us in such a form, that even the 



16 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

Protestants of England, when tliey saw him as described by- 
Mr. Froude, cried out : — " Oh, you have mistaken ^^our 
man ! " One fact will show you how this gentleman writes 
history. When Henry YIII. declared war against the 
Church, — when England was distracted by his tyranny, — one 
day hanging a Catholic because he would not deny the 
supremacy of the Pope, and the next day hanging a Protes- 
tant for denying the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament ; 
— during this time, when the ministers who remained faith- 
ful to the Pope were most odious to the tyrant ; and such was 
the slavish acquiescence of the English people, that they be- 
gan to hate their clergy, in order to please their king, — a 
certain man, Avhose name was Hun, was lodged a prisoner in 
the Lorillard Tower, and he was found in his cell, hanged 
by the neck, and dead. There was a coroner's inquest held 
over him, and the twelve — I can call them nothing but the 
tv/elve blackguards — that were on the jury, — in order to ex- 
press their own hatred, and to please the powers that were, 
brought in a verdict of wilful murder against the Chancellor 
of the Bishop of London, a most excellent priest. When 
the Bishop heard of this verdict, he applied to the Prime 
Minister to have the verdict quashed; just the same as if 
they found a verdict of wilful murder against you, who were 
not yet born. He brought the matter before the House of 
Lords J in order that the character of his Chancellor might 
be fully vindicated. The King's Attorney- General took 
cognizance of it ; and by a solemn decree the verdict of the 
coroner's jury was set aside ; and these twelve men were de- 
clared to be twelve perjurers. Now, listen to Mr. Fronde's 
version of that story. Writing the history of England, he 
comes to that fact ; and he says : 

'' The clergy at that time were reduced to such a state of 
immorality and wickedness, that, Hun being found dead in 
his cell, a coroner's jury actually found a verdict of mur- 



NOBMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 17 

der against the Chancellor of the Bishop of London ; and 
the Bishop was obliged to apply to Cardinal Wolsey for a 
special Jury to try the Chancellor, because, if they took any 
ordinary twelve men, they would be sure to find him guilty : " 

— leaving the reader under the impression, that the man was 
guilty of a murder, of which he was as innocent as Abel ; and 
that if he were placed before any twelve of his countrymen, 
they would find him guilty on the evidence. This is the im- 
pression this " candid writer " leaves, knowing the facts as 
well as I know them. 

Well, now, we come to consider the subject of his first 
lecture ; and, indeed, I must say, I never personally expe- 
rienced the difiiculty of hunting a will-o'-the-wisp through a 
marsh, until I came to follow this learned gentleman in his 
first lecture. I say this, not disrespectfully to him at all ; 
but he covered so much ground, and at such unequal dis- 
tances, that it is impossible to follow him with anything like 
order. He began by telling how Minister Bufus King wrote 
a letter about certain Irishmen ; and he went on to say how, 
— in the time of America's great Bevolutionary struggle, — • 
the Catholics of Ireland sympathized with England, while 
the Protestants of Ireland were breast-high for America. 
All these questions — which belong to our own day, — I will 
leave aside for the present ; and when I come, towards the 
close of my lectures, to speak of them, then I shall have 
great pleasure in taking up Mr. Froude's assertions and 
examining them. 

But, — coming home to the great question of Ireland, — what 
. does this gentleman tell us ? He tells us that, seven hun- 
dred years ago, Ireland was invaded by the Anglo-Normans : 
and the first thing, apparently, he wishes to do is to justify 
this invasion, and to establish the principle that the Nor- 
mans were right in coming to Ireland. How does he do 
this ? He begins by drawing a terrible picture of the state 



18 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

of Ireland before the invasion. He sa}^ — tliey were cutting 
each other's throats ; the whole land was covered with 
bloodshed ; there was in Ireland neither religion, morality, 
nor government ; and, therefore, the Pope found it necessary 
to send the Normans to Ireland, as one would send a police- 
man into a saloon where the people were killing each other. 
This is the first justification — that in Ireland, seven himdred 
years ago, — just before the Norman invasion, — there was 
neither morality, religion, nor government. Let us see if 
he is right. 

The first proof Mr. Froude gives that there was no gov- 
ernment in Ireland, is a most insidious statement. He 
says : — 

" How could there be any government in a country where 
every family maintained itself according to its own ideas, 
right or wrong, and acknowledged no authority ? " 

Well, if this be true, according to the modern use of the 
word "family," certainly Ireland was in a deplorable state; 
every family governing itself according to its own notions, 
and acknowledging no authority. What does he mean by 
the word '^family"? Speaking to Americans in this nine- 
teenth century, the word "family" means every household 
in the land. We talk of a man and his family, — the father 
and mother, and three or four, five or six children, as the 
case may be. This is our idea as to the word family ; and 
using the word in this sense, I fully admit that, if every 
family in Ireland were governed by their own ideas, admit- 
ting no authority, Mr. Froude has established his case. But 
. what is the fact ? What is the meaning of the word " family," 
as applied in Ireland, seven hundred years ago. The " family," 
in Ireland, meant the sept, or tribe — all that had the same 
name. They owned whole counties, a large extent of ter- 
ritory. The men of the same name were called the men of the 



NOBMAN mVASION AND MISRULE. 19 

same family ; as for instance, the McMurronghs, of Leinster ; 
the O^Tooles, of Wicklow ; the O'Byrnes, of Kildare ; the 
O'Conors, of^ Connaught ; the O'Briens, of Munster ; the 
O'Neills and O'Donnells, of Ulster. The family meant a 
nation ; the family mean two or three counties of Ireland, 
governed by one Chieftain ; all the men of one sept : and it 
is quite true that every such family governed ifcself in its 
own independence, and acknowledged no superior. That is 
quite true. There were five great families in Ireland : the 
O'Conors, in Connaught ; the O'Neills, in Ulster ; the Mc- 
Laughlins, in Meath ; the O'Briens, in Munster ; and the 
McMurroughs, in Leinster. Under these five great heads 
there were many septs, or smaller families, each counting 
from five hundred or six hundred to a thousand fighting 
men : but all acknowledging, in the different Provinces, the 
sovereignty of these five great royal houses. These five 
houses, again, elected their monarch, or supreme ruler, called 
the '^ Ard-righ," who dwelt in Tara. I ask, if the family 
thus meant a whole sept or tribe, having a regularly consti- 
tuted head, is it fair to say that Ireland was in a state of an- 
archy because every family governed itself? Is it fair of 
this gentleman thus to try and hoodwink the American jury, 
to which he has made his appeal, by describing the Irish 
family, which meant a sept or tribe, as a family of the nine- 
teenth century, which means only the head of the house and 
the mother and children ? 

Again, he says, the Irish people lived like the New-Zea- 
landers of to-day, in underground caves : and then he de- 
clares boldly — " I, myself, opened one of these underground 
lodging-houses of the Irish people." Now, mark ! this gen- 
tleman lives in Ireland ; and, a few years ago, he opened an 
ancient rath in Kerry, — one of those Danish raths; — and 
there he discovered a cave and some remains of mussel- 
shells and bones. At the time of that discovery he had the 



20 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IBELAND, 

most learned arclireologist in Ireland with him : and tliey 
put their heads together about it; but Mr. Froude ha'S writ- 
ten in this very book before me that what thes^ places were 
intended for, — what use they were applied to, — baffled con- 
jecture : no one could tell it. Weil, if it baffled conjecture 
then, and they could not tell what to make of it — if it so 
puzzled him then, what right has he to come out here in 
America, and say they were the ordinary dwellings of the 
Irish people ? 

In order to understand the state, of Ireland before the 
Norman invasion, I must ask you to consider, first, the an- 
cient Irish Constitution which governed the land. Ireland 
was governed by septs or families. The land, from time im- 
memorial, vv^as in possession of these families or tribes. Each 
tribe elected its own Chieftain; and to him they paid the 
most devoted allegiance and obedience ; so that the fidelity 
of the Irish clansman to his chief was proverbial. The 
chief, during his lifetime, convoked an assembly of the tribe ; 
and they elected from among the members of the family the 
best and the strongest man to be his successor : and they 
called him the Tanist. The object of this was that the suc- 
cessor of the King might be known, and that, at the King's 
death, there might be no riot or bloodshed, or contention for 
the right to succeed him. Was not this a wise law ? An 
elective monarchy has its advantages. The best man comes 
to the front because he is chosen by his fellow-men. When 
they came to select a successor to their Prince, the King's 
eldest son had no right, because he was the King's son, to 
succeed his father ; he might be a booby or a fool. So, they 
wi-sely selected the best and strongest and bravest and wisest 
man ; and he was acknowledged to have the right of- succes- 
sion ; he was the Tanist, according to the ancient law of Ire- 
land. Well, these families, as I have said, in the various 
Provinces, owed and paid allegiance to the King of the 



NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 21 

Province, wlio was one of the five great families, called '^the 
Five Bloods of Ireland." Each Prince had his own Judge, 
or Brehon, who administered justice in solemn court for the 
people. These Brehons, or Irish judges, were learned men. " 
The historians of the times tell us, they could speak Latin 
as fluently as they could Irish. They had an established 
code of law, had colleges where they studied that law ; and 
it was only when they graduated in their studies that they 
came home to their respective septs, or tribes, and were es- 
tablished as Brehons or Judges over the people. Kowhere 
in the history of Ireland do we read that any man rebelled 
or protested against the decision of a Brehon Judge. Then 
tlie five monarchs, in the five Provinces, elected the " Ard- 
righ" or High King. With him, they sat in council on na- 
tional matters, and on all matters that concerned the whole 
people, within the halls of imperial Tara. There St. Patrick 
found them in the year 432, minstrels and bards, and Bre- 
hons, princes, crowned monarchs, and High King : — there 
did he find them, discussing, like wise and prudent men, the 
afi'airs of the nation, when he preached to them the Faith of 
Christ. While this Constitution remained, the clansmen 
paid no rent for their land. The land of the tribe or family 
was held in common — it was the common property of all ; 
and the Brehon or Judge divided it, giving to each man what 
was necessary for him, with free light of pasturage over the 
whole. They had no idea of slavery or serfdom among them. 
The Irish clansman was of the same blood as his Chieftain. 
The O'Brien that sat in the saddle, at the head of his men, 
was related by blood to the Gallowglass CBrien that fought 
in the ranks. There was no such thing as slavery among 
them ; no such thing as the Chieftain looking down upon the 
people ; no such thing as cowed, abject submission on the 
part of the people to every woii:hiess decree. The Chieftain 
was one of themselves ; and the men stood in the ranks as 



22 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

freemen, perfectly equal, one with another. We are told 
even by Gerald Barry, the lying historian, who sometimes, 
though rarely, told the truth, that, when the English came to 
Ireland, nothing astonished them more than the free and bold 
manner in which the humblest man spoke to his Chieftain, 
and the condescension and equality with which the Chieftain 
treated the humblest soldier in his tribe. This was the an- 
cient Irish Constitution. Does this look like anarchy ? No ! 
It cannot be said, with truth, that there was anarchy in a 
land where the laws were so well defined, where everything 
was in its proper place. Mr. Froude says that there was, be- 
cause that the Chieftains were fighting amongst themselves. 
And so they were. But he immediately adds, that there was 
fighting everywhere throughout Europe, after the breaking 
up of the Roman Empire. If there was fighting going on 
in every land, — if the Saxon was cutting the JSTorman's 
throat, in England, — what right has he to say that Ireland, 
beyond all nations, was given up to anarchy, because Chief- 
tain drew the sword against Chieftain, frequently, or from 
time to time ? 

So much for the question of government. Now for the 
question of religion. The Catholic religion flourished in 
Ireland for six hundred years and more before the Anglb- 
Normans invaded her coasts. For the first three hundred 
years after the introduction of Christianity into Ireland, the 
religion of the Irish was the glory of the world and the 
pride cf God's holy Church. Ireland, for these three hun- 
dred years, was the island-mother home of saints and scholars. 
Men came from every country of the then known world to 
light the lamp of knowledge and sanctity at the sacred fire 
that burned upon the altars of Ireland. Then came the 
Danes ; and for three hundred years more our people were 
harassed by incessant wars. The Danes, as Mr. Froude 
remarked, — apparently with a good deal of approval, — had 



N'OBMAJS' INVASION AJSTD MISRULE. 23 

no respect for. Christ or His religion. The first thing they 
did was to pull down the churches, and set fire to the 
monasteries. They slaughtered the monks and holy priests 
and Bishops of Ireland. The people were left without re- 
ligious instruction, for in time of war men have not much 
time to think of religion. For three hundred years Ireland 
was subjected, year after year, to the incursions of the 
Danes; until on Good Friday morning, 1014, Brian Bo- 
roihme defeated them at the great battle of Clontarf. But 
it was not until the twelfth century, — on the 23d of 
August, 1103, — that they were finally driven out of the 
country, by the defeat of Magnus, their King, on Lough 
Strangford, in the North of Ireland. 

The consequence of those Danish wars w^as that the 
Catholic religion, — though it remained in all its vital 
strength, and in all the purity of its faith, among the Irish 
people, — was sadly shorn of that sanctity which adorned it 
for the first three hundred years of Ireland's Christianity. 
Yices sprang up among the people. They were accustomed 
to war, war, war, night and day, for three centuries. Where 
is the people on the face of the earth that would not be ut- 
terly demoralized by fifty years of war, not to speak at all 
of three hundred ? The wars of the Boses in England did 
not last more than thirty years ; but the people were so 
demoralized by their efiects that, — almost without a single 
struggle, — they changed their religion at the dictate of the 
blood-thirsty and licentious tyrant, Henry YIII. But no 
sooner were the Danes gone, than the Irish people assem- 
bled their Bishops and Princes in Council. We find, almost 
the very year after the final expulsion of the Danes, a Coun- 
cil was held : and here gathered their bishops and priests 
and almost all the chieftains of the land, the heads of the 
leading septs or families: and they framed wise laws, en- 
deavoring to repair all that Ireland lost in the Danish 



24 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

invasion ; and strict laws of Christian morality were en- 
forced. Again we find a Council assembled, with the Papal 
Legate Cardinal Papero at its head, in the year 1164, five 
years before the Normans invaded us. Now, we find the 
same Cardinal Papero, the very year before the Norman 
invasion, presiding at a Council of the Bishops of Ireland. 
We find the people making laws for their government, and 
preparing to observe them faithfully. We find the Irish 
Bishops and Archbishops supported by the swords and the 
power of the Chieftains. We find the Pope's Legate travel- 
ling fearlessly into Ireland, whenever his master sent him, 
without let or hindrance ; and when he arrived he was re- 
ceived with all the devotion and chivalrous afiection which 
the Irish have always evinced towards the representatives of 
their religion and their God. It is worth our Avhile to see 
what was the result of all these Councils, what was the re- 
sult of this great religious revival, which was taking place 
in Ireland during the few years that elapsed between the 
end of the Danish and the beginning of the Norman inva- 
sion. We find three great Irish Saints reigning together in 
the Church. We find St. Malachi, Primate of Armagh. 
We find him succeeded by St. Celsus ; and he again by St. 
GregoriuSj whose name is in the Martyrology of Pome. 
We find, in Dublin, St. Laurence O'Toole, of glorious mem- 
ory. We find Felix and Christian, two Bishops reigning in 
Lismore, in Waterford. And we find every man of them 
filling not only Ireland, but enshrined by the whole Church 
of God for their learniug and the brightness of their sanctity. 
We find, at the same time, Catholicus, in Dov/n ; Augustin 
CDaly, in Waterford ; Dionysius, Marianus, Johannes 
Scotus, Gregorius and others ; — all Irish monks, famous for 
their learning, famous for their sanctity, — in the great Bene- 
dictine Monastery of Patisbon. We find, moreover, just 
before the Normans arrived, in 1168, a great Council was 



NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE, 25 

held in Athboy. Tliirteen thousand representatives of the 
nation, — thirteen thousand warriors on horseback, with their 
Chieftains, — attended that Council, that they might hear 
whatever the Church commanded, and obey it. \Yhat was 
the result of all this ? I am not speaking from any preju- 
diced point of view. It has been said that if Mr. Froude 
gave the history of Ireland from an outside point of view^, 
Father Burke would give it from an inside view. I am 
only quoting English authorities : and in this interval, I 
find La,ngfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, writing to 
Brian, King of Munster, to congratulate him upoii the re- 
ligious spirit and peaceful disposition of his people. Fur- 
thermore, St. Anselm, — one of the greatest English saints, 
and Archbishop of Canterbury under Y/illiam Kufus, — 
has written as follows to Murchertach O'Brien, King of 
Munster : — 

" I give thanks to God for the many good things we hear 
of your Highness, and especially for the profound peace 
which the subjects of your realm enjoy. All good men vvho 
hear this give thanks to God, and pray that He may grant 
you length of days." 

The man who wrote that, perhaps, was thinking of the 
awful corruption, — the impiety and darkness of the most 
terrible kind, — which covered the whole land of England 
under the reign of the ferocious " Bed King," William Bu- 
fus. Yet, the Irish were irreligious, we are told by Mr. 
Froude! — and a good judge he must be of religion; for he 
says it is a well-known fact, that religion is a thing of which 
one man knows as much as another ; and none of us know 
anything at all. He tells us that the Irish were without 
religion at that very time, when the Irish Church was form- 
ing itself into the ancient model of sanctity, which it was 
before the Danish invasion ; when, until the time, two years 
before the Normans came, Ireland was at peace, and Boderic, 



26 ENGLISH MISEULE IN IBELAND, 

King of Connaught, was acknowledged " Ard-rigli," by every 
Prince and every Chieftain in the land. 

As to the charge that Ireland was without morality, I will 
answer it by one fact : A King in Ireland stole another 
man's wife. His name— accursed — was Dermot McMur- 
rough. King of Leinster. Every Chieftain in Ireland, — 
every man in the land, — rose up and banished him from 
Irish soil, as unworthy to live in the land. If this was the 
immoral people, — if this was the bestial, animal, depraved 
race which Mr. Froude describes to us, on lying Norman 
authorities, may I ask you, could not Dermot turn round 
and say to the Chieftains : " Why do you make war upon 
me ? have I not as good a right to be a blackguard as any- 
body else ? " 

Now comes Mr. Froude, and says that the Normans were 
sent to Ireland to teach the Irish the Ten Commandments. 
In the language of Shakspere, I sa}^, " I thank thee, Jew, 
for teaching me that word." Of these Ten Commandments, 
the most important, in relation to human society, are : 
"- Thou Shalt not steal." " Thou shalt not kill." " Thou 
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife." The Normans, accord- 
ing to Mr. Froude's own showing, had no right or title to 
one square inch of the soil of Ireland. They came to take 
what was not theirs, what they had no right or title to. 
They came, as robbers and thieves, to teach the Ten Com- 
mandments to the Irish people ; amongst them the Com- 
mandment — " Thou shalt not steal." 

Henry landed in Ireland in 1171. He was after murder- 
ing the holy" Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Thomas a 
Becket. They scattered his brains at the foot of the altar, 
before the Blessed Sacrament, at the Yesper hour. His 
blood v/as upon the hands of this monster, — he who came 
to Ireland to teach the Irish — "- Thou shalt not kill ! " 
Yv^hat was the action of this " reformer " when the adulterer 



NOBMAN INVASION AND MISRULE, 27 

was driven from the sacred soil of Erin, as one unworthy 
to profane it by his tread. He went over to Henry II., 
and got from him a letter permitting any of iiis subjects 
that chose to embark for Ireland, there to reinstate the 
adulterer and tyrant in his kingdom. They came, then, as 
proved, as helpers of an adulterer, to teach the Irish '' Thou 
shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife ! " Mr. Froude tells us 
they were right — that they were apostles of purity and 
honesty and clemency ; and Mr. Froude "is an honorable 
man." 

"Ah! but," he says, "my good Dominican friend, re- 
member, that, if they came, they came because the Pope 
seiit them." King Henry, in the year 1174, produced a 
letter which he said he got from Pope Adrian IV., permit- 
ting him to go to Ireland, and urging him, according to the 
terms of that letter, to dt) whatever he thought right and fit 
to promote the glory of God and the good of the people. 
The date that was on the letter was 1154, consequently it 
was twenty years old. During twenty years nobody had 
ever heard of that letter except Henry, who had it in his 
pocket, and an old man, called John of Salisbury, who went 
to Home and got the letter in a hugger-mugger way, from 
the Pope. It has been examined by a better authority than 
mine — by one who has brought to bear upon it all the acu- 
men of his great knowledge. It bears, — according to Keim- 
er, the most acceptable authority amongst English histo- 
rians, — the date of 1154. Pope Adrian was elected on the 
3d of December, 1154. As soon as the news of his elec- 
tion had arrived in England, John of Salisbury was sent by 
King Henry to congratulate him, and get this letter. He 
was elected on the 3d of December. It must have been a 
month later before the news arrived in England. In those 
days no letter could come so far, at least, under a month. 
John of Salisbury set out ; and it must haA e been another 



28 E^^'GLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

montli before he avrrived in Rome; consequently it must 
have been the beginning of March, 1155, when he arrived 
in Rome ; yet the letter of the Pope is dated 1154! It 
was found inconvenient, this date of Reimer's ; and by 
whatever authority he did it, it seems he changed the date 
afterwards to 1155. 

'' But," says Mr. Froude, " there is a copy of this letter 
in the archives at Rome. How do you get over that ? " 
"Well, the copy has no date at all. As Baronius, the histo- 
rian, and the learned Dr. Mansuerius declare — a rescript or 
document that has no date, — the day it was executed, the 
seal and the year, — is invalid — just so much paper ; — so that 
even if Adrian gave it, it was worth nothing. Again, 
learned authorities tell us that the existence of a document 
in the archives does not prove the authenticity of that doc- 
ument. It may be kept there as* a mere record. It was 
said that Henry kept this letter a secret, because his mother, 
tlic Empress Matilda, did not wish him to act on it. But if 
he had the letter, when he came to Ireland, why did he not 
produce it ? That was his only warrant for coming to Ire- 
land. He came there and invaded the country, and never 
breathed a word about having that letter, to a human being. 
There is a lie on the face of it. 

But Mr. Froude says that Alexander III., Adrian's suc- 
cessor, has mentioned that rescript or document in a letter. 
The answer I give on the authority of Dr. Lynch, the 
author of " Cambrensis E versus," as well as the Abbe 
McGeoghegan, one of the greatest Irish scholars, and one of 
the best archaeologists; and Dr. Moran, the learned bishop 
of Ossory — that Alexander's letter was a forgery, as well 
as that of Adrian TV. There are many learned men who 
admit the genuineness of both Adrian's and Alexander's 
rescripts ; but there are an equally large number who deny 
it ; and I prefer to believe with them that it was a forgery. 



J^ORMAN IJSfVASION' AJSfD MISRULE. 29 

Alexander's letter bore the date of 1172. Let us see is it 
likely that Pope would give a letter to Henry, whom he 
knew well, asking him to take care of the Church and set 
everything in order? Eeraember, Adrian did not know 
him, but Alexander knew him well. Henry, in 1159, sup- 
ported the anti-Pope, Octavianus, against Alexander. 
Henry, in 1166, supported the anti-Pope, Guido, against 
Alexander. According to Mathew of Westminster, Henry 
obliged every man in England, — from the boy of twelve 
years up to the old man, — to renounce their allegiance to the 
true Pope, and go over to an anti-Pope. "Was it likely, 
then, the Pope would give him a letter to settle ecclesiasti- 
cal matters in Ireland ? Alexander himself wrote to Henry, 
and said to him, — instead of referring to a document giving 
him permission to settle Church matters in Ireland ; — 

" Instead of remedying the disorders caused by your pre- 
decessors, you have oppressed the Church, and you have en- 
deavored to destroy the canons of apostolic men." 

Is this the man that Alexander would send to Ireland to 
settle affairs, and make the Irish good children of the Pope ? 

According to Mr. Fronde, the Irish never loved the Pope 
till the Normans taught them. What is the fact ? Until 
the accursed Normans came to Ireland, the Papal Legate 
always came and went when and wherever he would , at his 
own will. No Irish king obstructed him ; no Irishman's 
hand was ever raised against a Bishop, much less against 
the Papal Legate. But the very first Legate that came to 
Ireland, after the Norman Invasion, in passing through 
England, Henry took him by the throat, and imposed upon 
him an oath that, when he went to Ireland, he would not do 
anything that would be against the interest of 'the King. 
It was an unheard-of thing that a Bishop, Archbishop, or 
Cardinal should be persecuted, until the Anglo-Noi-mans 



30 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

brouglit with them their accursed feudal system, and con- 
centration of power in the hands of the king, an account of 
which I shall come to presently. Bitterly did Laurence 
O'Toole feel it. This great heroic, patriotic saint of Ire- 
landj when he went to England, the very moment he arrived 
he was made a prisoner, as a man to be feared ; for the 
King had left an order, that whenever he was found in 
England, the Saint should never be allowed to set his foot 
in Ireland asjain. And this is the man that was sent over 
as the apostle of morality to Ireland ! the man that is ac- 
cused of violating the betrothed wife of his own son^ Eichard 
I. ! — the man whose crimes cannot bear repetition 1 — v»^ho was 
believed by Europe to be possessed by a devil ! and of whom 
it was written that when he got into a fit of anger, he used 
to tear off his clothes, and sit down naked on the ground, 
and chew straw like a beast ! Is it likely that the Pope, 
who knew him so well, and sufiered so much from him, sent 
him to Ireland ; — the murderer of Bishops, the robber of 
churches, and the destroyer of ecclesiastical and every other 
form of liberty that came before him ? No, no ! Never 
will I believe that the Pope of Pome was so short-sighted, 
so blind, so unjust as, by the stroke of his pen, to abolish 
and destroy the liberties of the most faithful people that 
ever bowed down in allegiance to him. 

But let us suppose even that Pope Adrian gave the Bull. 
I hold still that it was of no account, for it was obtained by 
false pretences. It was obtained by falsely representing to 
the Po])e that the Irish were in a state of ignorance and im- 
morality, which did not exist. Secondly, this rescript from 
the Pope, if it was obtained, was obtained under a lie, and 
was null and void, being obtained under false pretences. But 
more than* this ; the Pope gave Plenry, in that rescript, only 
power to go to Ireland and fi^L everything ; to do everything 
for the glory of God and the good of the people. Unless he 



NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 31 

did this (and he never did it and never intended to do it,) 
the rescript was null and void. But suppose that rescript 
had actually been given ; what jDower did it give Henry ? 
Did it make him master of Ireland ? Did it give him power 
over the land of Ireland ? All that that Bull of the Pope 
says is that he should do what is necessary for the glory of 
God and the good of the people. By calling on th@ Irish 
Chieftains to accept Henry, — at most he established only 
what is called a '' haute suzerainty " of Ireland. Now, ^^ou 
must know that, in the early Middle Ages, there were two 
kinds of sovereignty ; there was the sovereign, the acknowl- 
edged head of the people. They were his, and he governed 
tliem, like the Kings and Emperors of to-day in Europe! 
But, besides this, there was the sovereign, who only claimed 
the title of King, who only claimed the homage of the Chief- 
tains of the land, but who left them in perfect liberty, and 
recognized the perfect independence of the land. He re- 
ceived the tribute of their homage and nothing more. This 
was all the fealty that the Pope ever permitted Henry to 
claim in Ireland, if he permitted him to claim so much. The 
proof lies here, that, when Henry came over to Ireland, he 
never said to the Irish that they should give up their inde- 
pendence. Not at all. On the contrary, he left Poderic 
O'Conor King of Connaught, and dealt with him as a king 
with his fellow-king. He acknowledged his royalty and na- 
tionality ; and he only demanded of him the allegiance and 
homage of a feudal prince to a feudal king, leaving him as a 
ruler perfectly independent. 

Again, let us suppose that Henry intended to conquer 
Ireland, and bring it into slavery. Did he succeed ? Noth- 
ing of the kind. When he came to Ireland, the kings and 
princes of the Irish people said to him : — " We are willing 
to acknowledge your higli sovereignty over us, as Lord of 
Ireland. We are the ov»^ners of the land. You are the 



32 ENGLISH MISRULE IJST lEELAND, 

Lord of Ireland ; and there is an end of it." The King was 
a-cknowledged by the people by the simple title of '' Lord of 
Ireland ; " nothing more. If he intended anything more — 
if he intended to invade and conquer the country, he never 
effected his purpose. For the N^ormans, for centuries, held 
only that part of Ireland which before was held by the 
Danes. The Irish, who are naturally straightforward, and 
always generoi>3, in the hour of their triumph permitted the 
Danes to remain in Dublin, Wexford, Wicklow, and Water- 
ford. Consequently, the Danes held the whole of the eastern 
seaboard towns. From the Llill of Howth round to Water- 
ford harbor was in their possession. The Normans who 
came over v/ere regarded by the Irish as cousins to the 
Danes ; and they only took the Danish territory ; — nothing 
more. They took precisely all that the Danes had before ; 
all that the Irish had given to the Danes, who were under- 
stood to be perfectly independent. At most, it seems to us 
that the Irish were willing to share the land with them, will- 
ing to receive them with a certain hospitality, and to divide 
the country with them. 

Now, Mr. Fronde's second j ustification of the Norman in- 
vasion is that Ireland was a prey to the Danes, who invaded 
the island ; and that the Irish were rendered ferocious by . 
these continual contests ; leaving the impression that the 
Danish wars in Ireland were only a succession of ferocious 
individual combats, between tribe and tribe, between man 
and man ; when the fact is, the Danish wars were magnifi- 
cent national trials of strength, between two of the bravest 
races that ever met each other, foot to foot and hand to 
hand on the battlefield. The Danes were unconquerable. 
They conqueved the Saxons in England. The Frenchman 
in France was unable to stand his ground against them. 
Still, for three hundred years, the Celt of Ireland disputed 
every inch of the island with them, filled every valley in the 



NOBMAJSr INVASION AND MISRULE. 33 

land v/ith their dead bodies ; and at last drove them back 
into the North Sea^, and freed his native land from their 
dominion forever. Yet this magnificent national contest is 
represented by this historian as a mere ferocious onslaught, 
dailj renewed, between man and man, in Ireland 1 

The Norman arrived : and we have seen how he was 
received. The Butlers and Eitzgeralds went down into Kil- 
dare ; the De Burgs, or Burkes, and the De Berminghams 
went down into the province of Connaught. The people 
offered them very little opposition. They gave them a por- 
tion of their lands, and welcomed them amongst them, and 
began to love them as if they were their own flesh and 
blood. Now the Norman, in England, hated and despised 
the Saxons. So thoroughly did he despise them, that his 
name for the Saxon was " villein " or '' churl." He did not 
allow the Saxons to sit at the same table with him ; and he 
would not intermarry with the Saxons for long years. The 
proud, steel-clad Normans, ferocious in passion, bold as 
lions, formed, by their Crusades and Saracenic wars, to be 
the bravest men then living on the face of the earth, never 
allowed the Saxons to interfere in any of their disputes. 
Gerald Barry, when he was speaking of the Saxons, said : 
''I am a Welshman, and I am proud to be a Welshman; 
but the Saxons are the vilest and basest race on the face of 
the earth." I am only giving his own words ; I do not say 
that I share his sentiments. " They fought one battle," he 
goes on to say: '/they allowed the Normans to overcome 
them, and consented to be slaves forevermore to the Nor- 
mans." And he wrote a book, in which he says, that they 
are by no means to be compared to the Celtic race ; '' not 
to be compared in bravery or in intelligence to the m.agnan- 
imous race of the Celts." Now, the Normans went down 
into Ireland, among the Irish people. When they went out- 
side the English portion of the country, or the ^^Pale," and 
2* 



34 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

got amongst the Irish people, what is the first thing that we 
see ? The very first thing, I answer, is ,that the Normans 
began to forget their Norman-French and their English, and 
learned to talk the Irish. They took Irish wives and were 
glad to get them, they adopted Irish names and Irish customs ; 
until we find, tv/o hundred years after the Norman invasion, 
these proud descendants of William FitzAdelm, Earl of 
Clanricarde, changing their names from De Burg, or Burke, 
to McWilliam, or sons of "William; and they called them- 
selves in Irish, " McWilliam Oughter," and " McWilliam 
Eighter," or the Upper and Lower Mc Williams. In the 
days of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, they called themselves by 
that name, and adopted the Celtic laws and Celtic customs. 
Concerning the four hundred sad years that follovv^ed the 
Norman invasion, down to the accession of Henry YIIL, 
Mr. Eroude has nothing to say, exce})t that Ireland was in 
a constant state of anarchy and confusion ; and it is too 
true. It is perfectly true. Chieftain warred against chief- 
tain. It was comparative peace before the invasion ; but 
when the Normans came in, they divided the Irish by crafb 
and cunning. The ancient historian Strabo, speaking of 
the Gael, says : " The Gauls ahvays march openly to their 
end, and they are therefore easily circumvented." So when 
the Normans came, and the Saxons, they sowed dissensions 
among the Irish people. They stirred them up against each 
other, and the bold, hot blood of the Celt was always ready 
to engage in contest and in war. What was the secret of 
that incessant and desolating war? There is no history 
more painful to read than the history of the Irish people, 
from the day that the Normans landed, until the day when 
the great issue of Protestantism was put before the nation, 
and when Ireland, for the first time, imited as one man. 
(Applause.) My friends, the true secret of that history is 
the constant effort of the English to force upon Ireland the 



WOBMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 35 

feudal system, and consequently to rob the Irish of every 
inch of their land and to exterminate them. I lay this 
down as the one secret, the one thread by which you may 
unravel the tangled skein of our history for the four hun- 
dred years that followed the Norman invasion. The Nor- 
mans and Saxons came with the express purpose and 
design of taking every foot of land in Ireland and exter- 
minating the Celtic race. It is an awful thing to think of ; 
but we have the evidence of history for the fact. First of 
all, Henry 11., whilst he made his treaties with the Irish 
kings, secretly divided the whole of Ireland into ten por- 
tions, and allotted each of these ten portions to one of his 
Norman knights. In a word, he robbed the Irish people 
and the Irish chieftains of every single foot of land in the 
Irish territory, and gave it to the Normans. It is true 
they were not able to take possession. It was as if a mas- 
ter robber were to divide the booty before it is taken. It 
was far easier to assign property not yet stolen than to put 
his fellow-thieves in possession of it. There were Irish 
hands and Irish battle-blades in the way for many a long 
year ; nor has it been accomplisbed to this day. 

In order to root out the Celtic race, and to destroy us, 
mark the measures of legislation which followed. First of 
all, my friends, vv^henever an Englishman was put in pos- 
session of an acre of land, he .got the right to trespass upon 
his Irish neighbors', and to take their land as far as he 
could ; and they had no action in a court of law to recover 
their land. If an Irishman brought an action at law against 
an Englishman for taking half of his field, or for trespassing 
upon his land, according to the law, from the beginning, 
that Irishman was put out of court ; there was no action ; 
the Englishman v^as perfectly justified in what he did. 
Worse than this ; they made laws declaring that the killing, 
of an Irishman was no felony. Sir John Davis, Attorney- 



30 ENGLISH MISRULE m IRELAND. 

General^ in the time of James I., tells us liovr, upon a cer- 
tain occasion, at Waterford, in the 29tli year of Edward I., 
of England, a certain Edward Butler brought an action 
against Robert de Almey to recover certain goods that 
Ttobert had stolen from him. The case was brout^ht into 
court. Hobert acknowledged that he had stolen the goods ; 
that he was a thief. The defence he put in was that Ed- 
ward, the man he had plundered, was an Irishman. The case 
was tried. Now, my friends, just think of it ! The issue 
that was put before the jury was, whether Edward, the 
plaintiff, was an Irishman or an Englishman. The jury 
found that Edward was an Englishman. That \vas enough ; 
Hobert, the thief, v/as obliged to give back the goods. But 
if the jury found that Edward was an Irishman he might 
keep the goods ; — there was no action against him. 

We find upon the same authority, — Sir John Davis, — a 
description of a certain jail-delivery at Waterford, where a 
man jiamed Hobert Walsh had killed the son of Ivor Mc- 
Gilmore. He was arraigned and tried for manslaughter ; 
and, without the slightest difiiculty, acknowledged it. 
" Yes," he said, '^ I did kill him ; but you have no right to 
try me for it : for he v/as an Irishman ! " Instantly he was 
let out of the dock, on condition — as the Irishman, at the 
time, was in the service of an English master — that he 
should pay v/hatever the master could claim for the loss of 
his services ; whatever was their value : but for the murder, 
he was let go scot-free. *• Not only," says Sir John Davis, 
" were the Irish considered aliens, but they were considered 
enemies : insomuch that though an Englishman might settle 
upon an Irishman's land, there was no redress ; but if an 
Irishman wished to buy an acre of land from an Englishman, 
he could not do it." So they kept the land they had ; and 
they were always gaining by plunder. They could steal; 
while we could not even buy. 



NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE. 37 

If any man made a will, and left an acre of lan.d to an 
Irishman, the moment it was proved that he was an Irish- 
man, the land was forfeited to the Crown of England — even 
if it was only left in trust to him : of which we have two 
very striking examples. We read that, in the first year of 
Henry YI., a certain Edward Butler, of Clonboyne, in the 
county of Meath, left some lands in trust for charitable 
purposes ; and he left them to his two chaplains, Conor 
O'Mulrooney and John McCann. It was proved that the 
two priests were Irishmen ; and though the land was left to 
them in trust for charitable purposes it was forfeited to the 
Crown, because the two men were Irishmen. Later, a cer- 
tain Mrs. Catherine Dowdall, a pious woman, made a v/ill 
when she was dying, leaving some land, near Swords, in the 
county of Dublin, to a priest named John O'Bellane : and 
the land was forfeited to the Crown because, as it was set 
forth, '^ the said John O'Bellane being one of the King's 
"Irish enemies." 

In the year 13G7, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third son of 
Edward III., came to Ireland and held a Parliament in 
Kilkenny, which passed certain law^s. Some of these laws 
were as follows : '^ If any man speak the Irish language, or 
be found keeping company with the Irish, or adopting Irish 
customs, his lands shall be taken from him and forfeited to 
the Crown of England." If an Englishman married an Irish 
woman, what do you think was the penalty ? He was sen- 
tenced to be half hanged ; to have his heart cut out before 
he was dead ; then to have his head struck off; and every 
rood of his land passed to the Crown of England. '' Thus," 
says Sir John Davis, the great English authority, " it is 
evident that the constant design of English legislation in 
Ireland was to j^ossess the Irish land, and to extirpate and 
exterminate the Irish people." 

Now, citizens of America, Mr. Froude came here to appeal 



38 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

to you for your verdict ; and he asks you to say : " Y7as not 
England justified in lier treatment of Ireland, because the 
Irish people would not submit ? " Now, citizens of America, 
I ask you, would not the Irish people be the vilest dogs on 
the face of the earth if they submitted to such treataient as 
this ? Would they be worthy of the name of men, if tbey 
submitted to be robbed, plundered, and degraded ? It is true 
that, in all this legislation, ^ve see the same spirit of con- 
tempt of which I spoke in the iBeginning of my lecture. But 
remember wdio it was that these Saxon churls were thus 
despising ; and ask yourselves what race was it they treated 
with so much contumely and so much contempt, and at- 
tempted in every way to degrade, whilst they were ruining 
and robbing them ? What race were the}^ ? Gerald Barry, 
speaking of the Irish race, says the Irish came from the grand- 
est race that he knew of on this side of the world, " and there 
are no better people under the sun." By the word "" better," 
he meant more valiant or more intellectual. Those who 
came over from England, by even the English v/ho Avent be- 
fore them, were called Saxon hogs, or churls, while the Irish 
called them hodach Sassenagh, These were the men who 
showed, in the very system by which they w^ere governed, that 
they could not understand the nature of a people who refused 
to be slaves. They were slaves themselves. Consider the 
history of the feudal system under which they lived. Accord- 
ing to the feudal system of government, the King of England 
was lord of every inch of land in England. Every foot of 
land in England was the king's ; and the nobles, who had 
the land, held it from the king — lijit they held it under feu- 
dal conditions, the most degrading that can be imagined. 
Eor instance : if a man died and left his heir, a son or 
daughter, under age, the heir or heiress, together with the 
estate, went into the hands of the king. He might perhaps 
leave a widow, with ten children. She would have to sup- 



NORMAN INVASION AND MISRULE, 39 

port all the children herself, whatever way she could, out of 
her dower ; but the estate and the eldest son or the eldest 
daughter went into the hands of the king. Then during the 
minority of the heir, the king could spend the revenues or 
rent of the estate, without the knowledge of any one, or 
could sell the castle and the estate, and no one could demand 
an account of him ; and when the son or daughter came of 
age, he then sold them in marriage to the highest bidder. 
We have Godfrey de Mandeville buying for twenty thou- 
sand marks, from King John, the hand of Isabella, Countess 
of Gloster. We have Isabella de Lingera, another heiress, 
ofiering a Jiundred marks to King John — for what do you 
think ? — for liberty to marry whoever she liked, and not to be 
obliged to marry the man he would give her to! (Laughter.) 
If a widow lost her husband, the moment the breath was out 
of him, the lady and the estate passed to the king; and he 
might squander the estate, or do whatever he liked with it ; 
and then he could sell the widow. "We have a curious ex- 
ample of this. We have Alice, Countess of Warwick, pay- 
ing King John one thousand pounds sterling, in gold, for 
leave to remain a vv^idow as long as she liked. This was the 
slavery called the feudal system, of which Mr. Froude is so 
proud, and of which he says : "It lay at the root of all that 
is noble and good in Europe." The Irish could not stand it, 
— small blame to theai ! But when the Irish people found 
that they were to be hunted doT\Ti like wolves, — found their 
lands were to be taken from them, and that there was no 
redress, — over and over again the Irish people sent petitions 
to the King of England, to give them the benefit of English 
law, and they would be amenable to it. But they were 
denied, and told that they should remain as they were : that 
is to say, England was determined to exterminate them, and 
get every foot of Irish soil. This is the one leading idea or 
principle which animated England in her treatment of Ire- 



40 ENGLISH MISRULE IJY IRELAND. 

land tliroiighout those four hundred years, and it is the only 
clue you can find to that turmoil and misery, and constant 
fighting which was going on in Ireland during that period. 

Sir James Cusack, an English commissioner sent over by 
Henry VIII., wrote to his Majesty these quaint words : 
'' The Irish be of opinion amongst themselves that the Eng- 
lish wish to get all their lands, and to root them out com- 
pletely." He just struck the nail on the head. Mr. Froude 
himself acknowledges that the land question lay at the root 
of the whole business. Nay, more, the feudal system would 
have handed over every inch of land in Ireland to the Norman 
king and his Norman nobles ; and the O'Briens, the O'Neills, 
the O'Donnells, and the O'Conors, were of more ancient and 
better blood than that of William, the bastard Norman. 
(Cheers.) The Saxon might submit to feudal lav/, and be 
crushed into a slave, a clod of the earth ; the Celt never would. 
England's great mistake — I believe, in my soul, that the great 
mistake, of all others the greatest, — lay in this, that the Eng- 
lish people never realized the fact that, in dealing with the 
Irish, they had to deal with the proudest race on the face of 
the earth. 

During all these years the Norman nobles, the Ormondes, 
the Desmonds, the Geraldines, the De Burghs, were at the 
head and front of every rebellion. The English complained 
of them, and said they Avere worse than the Irish rebels ; 
that they were constantly stirring up disorders. Do you 
know the reason v/hy? Because they, as Normans, were 
under the feudal laws, and therefore the Mng's sheriffs could 
come down on them, at every turn, with fines and forfeitures 
of the land held from the king. So, by keeping the country 
in disorder, they were always able to defy the sherifi*s ; and 
they preferred the Irish freedom to the English feudalism : 
therefore, they fomented and kept up these discords. It 
was the boast of my kinsmen of Clanricai-de that, with the 



I 



r 



NOBMAJSf IJSrVASION AND MISRULE. 41 

blessing of Gocl, tliey would never allow a king's writ to 
run in Connauglit. Dealing with this period of our history, 
Mr. Froude says that the Irish Chieftains, and their septs or 
tribes, were doing this or that — the Geral dines, the Des- 
monds, and the Ormondes. I say, slowly, Mr. Froude ; the 
Geraldines and the Ormondes were not Irish Chieftains ; so 
do not father their acts upon the Irish ; the Irish Chieftains 
have enough to answer for, during these four hundred years. 
I protest to you that, in this most melancholy period of our 
sad history, I have found but two cases, two instances, that 
cheer me ; and both were the action of Irish Chieftains. In 
one we find that Turlough O'Conor put away his wife; she 
was one of the O'Briens. Theobald Burke, one of the Earls 
of Clanricarde, lived in open adultery with the woman. 
With the spirit of their heroic ancestors, the Irish Chieftains 
of Comiaught came together, deposed him, and drcve him out 
of the place. Later on, we find another Chieftain, Brian 
McMahon, who induced Sorley McDonnell, chief of the 
Hebrides, or Western Islands, to put away his lawful wife, 
and marry a daughter of his own. The following year they 
fell out ; and McMahon drowned his own son-in-law. The 
chiefs, O'Donnell and O'Neill, came together with their 
forces, and deposed McMahon, in the cause of virtue, honor, 
and womanhood. I have looked in vain through these four 
hundred years for one single trait of generosity or of the 
assertion of virtue among the Anglo-Norman chiefs ; and 
the dark picture is only relieved by these two gleams of Irish 
patriotism and Irish zeal in the cause of purity and of out- 
raged honor. 

Now, Mr. Froude opened another question in his first lect- 
ure. He said that, during all this time, while the English 
monarchs were engaged in trying to subjugate Scotland, and 
trying to subdue their French Provinces, the Irish Avere rap- 
idly gaining ground, hemming the English in, and crippling 



43 ENGLISH MISRULE IJY IBELAND, 

the Pale, year by year. Tlie English power in Ireland was 
frequently almost annihilated ; and the only thing that saved 
it v/as the love of the Irish for their own independent w^a}^ 
of fighting, which, though favorable to freedom, was hostile 
to national unity. He srays, speaking of that time, "Would 
it not have been better to have allowed the Irish Chieftains 
to govern their ow^n people ? Freedom to whom ? — freedom 
to the bad, to the violent ! It is no freedom ! " I deny that 
the Irish Chieftains, with all their faults, were, as a class, 
bad men or violent men. I deny that they were engaged, 
as Mr. Froude says, in cutting their peoples' throats ; that 
they w^ere a people v/ho w^ould never be satisfied. Mr. Froude 
tells us emphatically and significantly, that " the Irish people 
were satisfied with their Chieftains ; " but the people are 
not satisfied if their throats are being cut. The Irish Chief- 
tains were the bane of Ireland by their divisions ; the Irish 
Chieftains were the ruin of their country by their want of 
union, and want of generous accjuiescence in the rule of 
some great and noble head that would save them by uniting 
them. The Irish Chieftains, even in the days of the heroic 
Edward Bruce, did not rally around him as they ought. In 
their divisions is the secret of Ireland's slavery and ruin 
through those years. But with all that, history attests that 
they were still magnanimous enough to be the fathers of 
their people, and to be the natural leaders, as God intended 
them to be, of their septs, families, and namesakes. And 
they struck wdiatever blows they did strike, in what they 
imagined to be the cause of right, justice, and liberty; and 
the only blow that came in the cause of outraged purity, 
came from an Irish hand, in those dark and terrible years. 

I will endeavor to follow this gentleman in his subsequent 
lectures. Now a darker cloud than that of mere invasion is 
lowering over tlie horizon of Ireland ; now comes the demon 
of religious discord — weaving the sword of religious persecu- 



NOBMAN mVASIOJ^ AIS'D MISUULE, 43 

tion over the distracted and exhausted land. And Vv^e shall 
see whether this historian has entered into the spirit of the 
great contest that followed, and that, in our day, has ended 
in a glorious victory for Ireland's Church ; which will be 
followed, as assuredly, by a still more glorious victory for 
Ireland's Nationality. 



SECOND LECTUEE. 

{Delivered at the Academy of Music ^ New YorJc^ JS'ov. 14, 1872.) 

THE TUDORS IN IRELAND. 

m 

Ladies and Gentlemen : We now come to consider the 
second lecture of the eminent Englisk historian who has 
come amongst us. It covers one of the most interesting 
and terrible passages in our history. It takes in three 
reigns, — the reign of Henry YIII., the reign of Elizabeth, 
and the reign of James I. : I scarcely consider the reigns 
of Edward YI. and of Fhilip and Mary worth counting. 
The learned gentleman began his second lecture with a 
rather startling paradox. He asserted that Henry VIII. 
was a hater of disorder. Now, my friends, every man in 
this world has a hero. Whether consciously or uncon- 
sciously, every man selects out of history some character or 
other v/hich he admires : until at length, from constantly 
thinking of the virtues and excellences of his hero, he 
comes almost to worship him. Before us all lie the grand 
historic names that are written upon the world's annals : 
and every man is free to select the character that he likes 
best, and to choose his hero. Using this privilege, Mr. 
Eroude has made the most singular selection of his hero 
that ever you or I heard of: his hero is Henry YIII. It 
speaks volumes for the integrity of Mr. Fronde's own mind ; 
it is a strong argument that lie possesses a charity the most 
sublime, when he has been enabled to discover virtues in 
the historical character of one of the greatest monsters that 



THE TUDOBS IN IRELAND, 45 

ever cursed the earth. He has, however, succeeded in this, 
which, to us, appears an impossibility. And he has discov- 
ered, amongst many other shining virtues in the character 
of the English Nero, a great love for order, and a great 
hatred of disorder. Well, we must stop at the very first sen- 
tence of the learned gentleman, and try to analyze it, and see 
how much there is of truth in this word of the historian, and 
how much there is which is only an honorable, and, to him, 
a truthful figment of his imagination. 

All order in the State is based upon three grand principles, 
my friends, namely, — the supremacy of the law ; the respect 
for, and the liberty of, conscience ; and a tender regard for 
that which lies at the fountain-head of all human society, 
namely, — the sanctity of the marriage-tie. The first element 
of order in every State is the supremacy of the law. In this 
supremacy lies the very quintessence of human freedom, and 
of all order. The law is supposed to be (according to the 
definition of Aquinas), the judgment pronounced by profound 
reason and intellect, thinking and legislating for the public 
good. The law, therefore, is the expression of reason ; — 
reason backed by authority ; reason influenced by the noble 
motive of the public good. This being the nature of law, the 
very first thing that we demand for this law is that every 
man bow down to it and obey it. Ko man in the community 
can claim exemption from obedience to the law ; least of all, 
the man who is at the head of the community ; because ho is 
supposed to represent, before the nation, that principle of 
obedience, without which all national order and happiness 
perish among the people. Was Henry VIII. an upholder of 
law? Was he obedient to the law ? I deny it : and I have the 
evidence of all history to back me up in the denial. I brand 
Henry YIII. as one of the greatest enemies of freedom and 
of law that ever lived in this world ; consequently one of 
the greatest promoters of disorder. I will only give you 



46 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

one example ; out of ten thousand, I have only selected one. 
When Henry broke with the Pope, he called upon his sub- 
jects to acknowledge him — bless the mark! — as the spiritual 
head of the Church. There were three Abbots of three 
charter-houses in London, — namely, the Abbot of London 
proper, the Abbot of Axiolam, and the Abbot of Bellival. 
These three men refused to acknowledge Henry as the 
supreme spiritual head of the Church. He had them ar- 
rested, had them tried, and had a jury of twelve citizens of 
London to sit upon them. Now^ the first principle of Eng- 
lish law, the grand p^ladium of English legislation and 
freedom, is the perfect liberty of the jury. The jury, in 
any trial, must be perfectly free : not only free from all 
coercion from without, but free even from any prejudice. 
They must be free from any prejudging of the case; must 
be perfectly impartial, and perfectly free to record their ver- 
dict. These twelve men refused to convict the three Ab- 
bots of high treason ; and they grounded their refusal upon 
this : " Never," they said, '' has it been heard in England 
that it was high treason to deny the spiritual supremacy of 
the king. It is not law; and, therefore, we cannot find 
these men guilty of high treason." What did Henry do ? 
He sent word to the jury that if they did not find the three 
Abbots guilty, he would visit them with the same penalties 
tkat he had prepared for their prisoners ! He sent word to 
the jury that they should find them guilty! I brand him, 
therefore, as having torn in pieces the charter of English 
liberty, jNIagna Charta, and as having trampled upon the 
first grand element of English law and jurisprudence, 
namely, the liberty of the jury. Citizens of America! 
would you, any one of you, like to be tried by a jury, if 
you knew that the President of the United States had 
informed that jury that they were bound to find you guilty 
or else he would put them to death ? Where would there 



THE TUnOBS IJSr lEELAND. 4/J 

be liberty, — where would there be law, — if such a transac- 
tion were permitted ? And this was the action of Mr. 
Froude's great admirer of order — his hero, Henry YIII. 

The second grand element of order is respect for con- 
science. The conscience of a man, and consequently of a 
nation, is supposed to be the great guide in all the relations 
in which the people or the individual stand to God. The 
conscience of man is so free that the Almighty God Himself 
respects it ; and it is a theological axiom that if a man does 
a wrong act, thinking he is doing right, the wrong will not 
be attributed to him by Almighty God. Was this man a 
respecter of conscience ? Again, out of ten thousand acts of 
his, I will select one. He ordered the people of England to 
change their religion ; ordered them to give up that grand 
system of dogmatic teaching which is in the Catholic Church, 
where every man knows what to believe and what to do. 
And what religion did he offer them instead ? He did not offer 
them Protestantism, for Henry YITI. never was a Protestant; 
and, to the last day of his life, if he could only have laid 
his hands on Martin Luther, he would have made a toast of 
him. He heard Mass up to the day of his death; and after 
his death there was a solemn High Mass over his inflated 
corpse, — a solemn High Mass, that the Lord might have 
mercy on his soul. Ah ! my friends, some other poor soul, 
I suppose, got the benefit of that Mass. What religion did 
he offer the people of England? He simply came before 
them and said : " Let every man in the land agree with me; 
whatever I say, that is religion." More than this, his Par- 
liament, a slavish Parliament, — every man afraid of his life, 
— passed a law making it high treason not only to disagree 
vrith the King in anything that he believed, but making 
it high treason for any man to dispute anything that the 
King should ever believe in the future time. He was not 
only the enemy of conscience ; he was the annihilator of 



48 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

conscience. He would allow no man to liave a conscience. 
" I am your conscience," he said to the nation ; ''I am your 
infallible guide in all things that you are to believe, and in 
all things that you are to do ; and if any man sets up his 
own conscience against me, that man is guilty of high trea- 
son, and I will stain my hands in his heart's blood." This 
is the great lover of order ! 

The third great element of order is that upon which all 
society is based. The great key-stone of the arch of society 
is the sanctity of the marriage tie. Whatever else is inter- 
fered with, that must not be touched ; for Christ, our Lord, 
has said, " Those that God has joined together let no man put 
asunder." A valid marriage can only be dissolved by the 
angel of death. No power in heaven or on earth — much 
less in hell — can dissolve the validity of a marriage. Henry 
YIIl. had so little respect for the sanctity of the marriage 
tie that he brutally put away from him a woman to whom 
he was lawfully married, and took in her stead (while she 
was yet living,) a woman who was supposed to be his own 
daughter. He married six wives. Two of them he repudi- 
ated — divorced ; two of them he beheaded ; one of them 
died in childbirth ; — and the sixth and last one — Mistress 
Catherine Parr — had her name dovrn in Heniy's book, at 
the time of his death, in the list of his victims; and she- 
would have had her head cut off, if the monster had lived 
for a few^ days longe-r. This is all matter of history. And 
now, I ask the American public, is it fair for Mr. Froude, 
or any other living man, to present himself before an Amer- 
ican audience, — an audience of enlightened and cultivated 
people, that have read history as well as the English histo- 
rian, and ask them to swallow the absurd paradox that Henry 
YIII. was an admirer of order and a hater of disorder. 

But Mr. Froudo says : '' Now, this is not fair. I said in 
my lecture that I would have nothing to do with Henry's 



THE TUDOES IN IRELAND, 49 

matrimonial transactions." Ah ! Mr. Fronde, yon were 
wise. " Bnt at least," lie says, " in liis relations to Ireland, 
I claim that he was a hater of disorder ; " and the proof he 
gives is the following : First of all he says that one of the 
curses of Ireland was absenteeism, — the absentee landlords ; 
and he is right. Now, Henry, he says, put an end to that 
business in the simplest way imaginable ; he took the estates 
away from the absentees and gave them to other people. 
My friends, it sounds well, very plausible — this saying of 
the English historian. Let us analyze it a little. During 
the '' Wars of the Hoses," between the Houses of York and 
Lancaster, which preceded the Keformation in England, 
many of the English families and Anglo-Norman families 
that were settled in Ireland, went over to England and 
joined in the conflict. It was an English question and an 
English war ; and the consequence was that numbers of the 
English settlers retired from Ireland and left their estates, 
— abandoned them entirely. Others again, — from disgust, or 
because they had large English properties, — preferred to 
live in their own country, and retired from Ireland to live 
in England. So that, when Henry YIII. came to the 
throne of England, the English "Pale," as it was called, 
comprised only about one-half of the counties of Louth, 
Westmeath, Dublin, Wicklow, and AVexford, — nothing 
more ; only one-half of each of these counties. Henry, ac- 
cording to Mr. Froude, performed a great act of justice, 
when he took from these absentees their estates, and gave 
them — to whom ? To other Englishmen, his own fav^orites 
and friends. ISr6w, the historical fact is this, that, as ' soon 
as the English retired, and abandoned their estates, the Irish 
people came in and repossessed themselves of their own prop- 
erty. Mark, my friends, that even if the Irish people had 
no title to that property, the very fact of the English having 
abandoned it gave them a sufficient title ; because, " hoiwb 
3 



50 E^'-GLISH MISRULE m IRELAND. 

derelicta sunt prcemia capientis^'' — that is to say, things that 
are abandoned belong to the man that first gets hold of 
them. But much more jvist was the title of the Irish people 
to that land, because it was their own, because they were 
unjustly dispossessed of it by the very men who abandoned 
it now. And therefore they came in with a twofold title, 
namely, "the land is ours because there is nobody to claim it, 
the owner having retired ; and even if there were, the land 
is ours because it was always ours, and we never lost our 
right to it." When, therefore, Henry YIII., the " lover of 
order," dispossessed the absentees of their estates, and sent 
over other Englishmen, and handed over these estates to 
men who would live in Ireland, and on the land, Mr. Froude 
claims great credit for him, and says, that in so doing he 
acted well for the Irish people. But the doing of this in- 
volved the driving of the Irish people a second time out of 
their own property. That was the whole secret of Henry's 
wonderful beneficence to Ireland, in giving us "resident 
landlords ! " Just picture it to yourselves, in this way, my 
friends. There are a great many here who are owners of 
property, — I suppose the most of you. Just suppose the 
Government of the United States, or the President, turning 
you out of your property, taking your houses and lots and 
lands from you, and giving them to some friend of his own ; 
and then saying to you : " Now, my friend, you must re- 
member, I am a lover of order ; I am giving you ^ a resident 
landlord ! ' " 

Henry, as soon as he ascended the throne, sent over the 
Earl of Surrey, in the year 1520. Surrey was a brave sol- 
dier, a stern, rigorous man ; and Henry thought that, by 
sending him over, and backing him with a grand army, he 
would be able to repress the disordered elements in the Irish 
nation. That disorder reigned in Ireland, I am the first to 
admit ; but in tracing that disorder to its cause, I claim that 



THE TUDORS IjV IRELAND, 51 

the cause was not in any inherent love for disorder in the 
Irish character, though they were always very fond of a 
fight ; I admit that (laughter) ; — but I hold and claim that 
the great cause of all the disorder and turmoil of Ireland 
was, first, the strange and inhuman legislation of England 
for four hundred years previously ; and secondly, the pres- 
ence of the Anglo-Norman lords in Ireland, who fostered 
and kept up disturbances in the country in order that they 
might have an excuse for not paying their feudal dues and 
duties to the king. 

Surrey came over and tried the strong hand for a time ; 
but he found, — brave as he was, and accomplished General 
as he was, — he found that the Irish were a little too many 
for him ; and he sent word to Henry : " This people can 
only be subdued by conquering them utterly, — by going in 
amongst them with fire and sword. And this you will not 
be able to do because the country is too large, and so geo- 
graphically difficult, that it is impossible for an army to pen- 
etrate into its fastnesses, to subjugate the whole population." 
Then it was that Henry took up the policy of conciliation 
— when he could not help it. Mr. Froude makes it a great 
virtue in this monarch that he endeavored to conciliate the 
Irish. He did it because he could not help it. 

And now, my friends, there is one passage in the corre- 
spondence between Surrey and Henry the Eighth that speaks 
volumes ; and it is this : When the Earl of Surrey arrived 
in Ireland he found himself in the midst of war and confu- 
sion. But the people who vs^ere really at the source of all 
that confusion he declares to be not so much the Irish, or 
their Chieftains, as the Anglo-Norman and English lords in 
Ireland. Here is the passage in question. There were two 
Chieftains of the McCarthys, — Conor Og McCarthy and 
McCarthy Ruadh, or the Eed McCarthy. Surrey wrote of 
these two men, to Henry YIIL, and he says : — " These are 



52 ENGLISH MISRULE m IRELAND. 

two wise men, and more conformable to order than some of 
the Englishmen here." Thus out of the lips of one of Ire- 
land's bitterest enemies, I take the answer to Mr. Fronde's 
repeated assertion that we Irish are so disorderly, and such 
lovers of turmoil and confusion, that the only way to reduce 
us to order is to sweep us away altogether. 

The next feature of 'Surrey's policy, when he found he 
could not conquer Ireland wdth the sword, was to set Chief- 
tain against Chieftain. And so he writes to Henry: — ''I 
am endeavoring," he says, " to perpetuate the animosity be- 
tween O'Donnell and O'l^eill in Ulster." Here are his 
words : — " It would be dan^erful to have them both aoree 
and join together." It vv^ould be dangerous ! AYell might 
Mr. Fronde sa}^, that, in the day in v>^hich we, Irish, shall 
be united, we shall be invincible, and no power on earth 
shall keep us slaves. " It would be dangerful to have them 
both join together; and the longer they continue at war, the 
better it will be for your Grace's subjects here." Now, 
mark the spirit of that letter, and you mark the w^hole geni- 
us of England's treatment of Ireland. He was not speak- 
ing of the Irish as subjects of the King of England. He 
has not the slightest consideration for the unfortunate Irish, 
whom he was pitting against each other. " Let them bleed," 
he says; "the longer they continue at war, — the greater 
number of them that are swept away, — the better it will be 
for your Grace's subjects here." The spirit of the legisla- 
tion, the spirit of the law, was intended only to protect the 
English settler, and to exterminate the Irishman. This Sir 
John Davies himself, Attorney-General of King James I., 
declares lay at the root of all England's legislation for Ire- 
land for four hundred years, and was the cause of all the 
misery and all the evils of Ireland. 

Surrey retired after two years ; and then, according to 
Mr. Froude, Henry tried " Home Kule " in Ireland. Here 



THE TUDOES UT IRELAND. 53 

again the learned historian tries to make a point for his hero ; 
and Irishmen, he says, admire the memory of this man. 
" He tried ' Plome Rule ' with you. He found that you 
were not able to govern yourselves ; and he was obliged to 
take the whip and drive you." Let us see what kind of 
" Plome Kule " did Henry try. One would imagine that 
" Home Kule," in Ireland, meant that Irishmen should man- 
age their own.afFairs, should have the making of their own 
laws ; it either means this, or it means nothing. It is ''a 
delusion, a mockeiy, and a snare," unless it means that the 
Irish people have a right to assemble in their own Parlia- 
ment, to govern themselves by legislating for themselves, 
and by making their own laws. Did the " Home Rule " of 
Henry VI 11. mean this ? Not a bit of it. All he did was to 
make the Earl of Kildare Lord Lieutenant, or Lord Deputy, — 
to place an Irishman — that is to say an Anglo-Norman Irish- 
man — at the head of the State, for a few years. And in this 
consisted the whole scheme of the '' Home Rule " attributed 
by Mr. Froude to Henry YIII. He did not call upon the 
Irish nation and say to them, '' Return members to Parlia- 
ment, and I will allow you to make your own laws." Lie 
did not call upon the Irish Chieftains, the natural represent- 
atives of the nation, — the men in whose veins flowed the 
blood of Ireland's Chieftaincy, for thousands of years ; he 
did not call upon the O'Briens, the O'Neills, the McCarthys, 
and the O'Conors, and say to them, " Go, and assemble ; 
make your own laws ; and, if they are just laws, I will set 
my seal upon them ; and let you govern Ireland through 
your own legislation." No ; but he called on a clique of 
Anglo-Norman lords, — the most unruly, the most warlike, 
the most restless pack that ever you or I read or heard of in 
all history, — and he said to these men : " Take and govern 
the country ; I vest the government in your hands." 

No sooner did Henry leave these men to govern Ireland, 



54 . ^ ENGLISH MISRULE IK IRELAND. 

than they began to make war npon the Irish. Kildare was 
made Lord Deputy in 1522 ; and the very first thing those 
Anglo-Norman lords did was to assemble an army and lay 
waste all the territory of the Irish Chieftains around them. 
They killed the people, burned the villages, and destroyed 
everything. Then, after a time, they fell out among them- 
selves, — these Norman lords. The great family of the But- 
lers, the Earls of Ormonde, became jealous of. Kildare, who 
was a Fitzgerald, and began to accuse him to the King of 
treasonable actions. In 1524, the Earl of Kildare entered 
into an undoubtedly trefasonable correspondence with Francis 
I., King of France, and Charles Y., Emperor of Germany. 
He was called to England for the third time to answer for 
his conduct; and, in 1534, Henry put him in prison. Then 
his son. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, — called '' Silken Thomas," 
■ — a brave, hot-headed, rash young Norman noble, — revolted, 
because his father was a prisoner in England, and it was told 
him that the old Earl was about to be put to deatli. Henry 
declared war against him, and he declared war against the 
King of England. The consequence of this v/ar was that the 
whole province of Munster and a great part of Leinster were 
ravaged ; — the people were destroyed ; towns and villages were 
burned ; until, at length, there was not as much left in nearly 
one-half of Ireland as would feed man or beast. So that 
this " Home Rule " of Henry resulted in the rebellion of 
his Norman lords ; and the treason of Kildare ended in the 
ruin of nearly one-half the Irish people. 

Perhaps you will ask me, did the Irish people take anjr 
part in that war, so as to justify the treatment they re- 
ceived ? I answer, they took no part in it ; it was an Eng- 
lish business from beginning to end ; and the Irish Chief- 
tains took little or no interest in that war. We read th«,t 
only O'Carroll, O'Moore, of Offaly ; and O'Conor— only 
three Irish Chieftains sided with the Geraldines and drew 



THE TUDOBS m lEELAND. 55 

the sword against Henry ; — three Chieftains of rather small, 
Tinimportant septs, who by no means represented the Irish 
people of Munster or any other Province. And yet upon 
the Irish people fell the avenging and destroying hand of 
Henry the Eighth's army. 

Mr. Fronde goes on to say, "• The Irish, somehow or other, 
yet seemed to like Henry YIII." Y/ell, if they did, I don't 
admire their taste. He pleased them, says Mr. Froude, and 
they got fond of him ; and then he adds the reason why : 
and it w^as that Henry never showed any disposition to dis- 
possess the Irish people of their lands or to exterminate 
them. Now, I take him up on that. Is it true or is it 
not ? Fortunately for the Irish Historian, the State papers 
are open to us as well as to Mr. Froude. What do the 
State papers of the reign of Henry tell us ? They tell us 
that project after project was formed, during the reign of 
this monarch, to drive the whole Irish nation into Con- 
naught, or west of the Shannon. That Henry YIII. wished 
it; that the Irish Council, that (according to Mr. Froude) 
governed Ireland by " Home Rule," wished it ; and that 
the people of England desired it. And oae of those State 
papers is in these words : — 

'^ Considering theses premises brought to pass, there shall 
no Irish be on this side of the ^yaters of Shannon, unprose- 
cuted, unsubdued, and unexiled. Then shall the English 
Pale be fully the distance of two hundred miles in length 
and more." 

More than this, we have the evidence of the State papers 
of the time, that Henry YIII. meditated and contemplated 
an utter extirpation, — the utter sweeping away and destruc- 
tion of the whole Irish race. We find the Lord Deputy 
and Council, in Dublin, writing to his Majesty; and here 
are their words. They tell him that his project is impracti- 
cable ; they say : 



56 ENGLISn MISEULE IJST IBELAJS'D. 

" The land is large : by estimation as large as England : 
so that to inhabit the whole with new inhabitants would be 
an enterprise so great, that there is no prince christened that 
might commodiously spare so many subjects to depart out 
of his realms ; but to encompass the destruction and total 
subjection of the land would be a marvellous and stupendous 
achievement from the great difficulties, both by lack of 
inhabitants and the great hardiness of these Irish, who can 
endure both hunger^ and cold, and thirst, and evil lodging, 
far more than the inhabitants of any other land. And it 
would be un2:)recedented, the conquest of this land. We 
have not heard nor read of any country that was subdued 
by such a conquest, the whole inhabitants of which had been 
utterly extirpated and banished." 

Great God ! is this the man that Mr. Froude tells us was 
the '' friend of Ireland," that never showed any design to 
take their lands or to dispossess them of their possessions ! 
This is the man — the model " admirer of order," the " hater 
of disorder ! " Surely, he was bound to create magnificent 
order ; for, if a people are troublesome, and you want to 
reduce them to quiet, the best way, and the simplest w^ay, is 
to kill them all. Just like some of those people in England 
— nurses, we read of, a fev/ years ago, — that were farming 
out children ; and, wdien a child was a little fractious, they 
gave it a nice little dose of poison ; and they called that 
"quieting" it. 

Do you know the reason v/hy Henry YIII. pleased the 
Irish, — for there was no doubt about it, — that they were 
more pleased with him than with any other English mon- 
arch, up to that time ? The reason is a very simple one. 
He had his own designs; but he concealed them. He was • 
meditating, like an anticipated Oliver Cromwell, th* ruin 
and destruction of the Irish race. But he had good sense ; 
he kept it to himself; and it only came out in the State 
papers. But he treated the Irish with a certain amount of 
courtesy and politeness. Henry, with all his faults, was a 



THE TULOES US' lUELANB, 57 

learned man, an accomplislied man, a man of the very best 
manners, — a man that, with a bland smile, would give you 
a warm shake of the hand. It is true, the next day he 
might have your head cut off; but still he had the manners 
of a gentleman. And it is a singular fact, my friends, that 
the tv/o most gentlemanly Kings in England were the two 
greatest scoundrels, perhaps, that ever lived; — Henry YIII. 
and George lY. Henry had dealt with the Irish people 
with a certain amount of civility and courtesy. He did not 
come in amongst them, like all his predecessors, saying: 
^' You are the King's enemies; you ought all to be put to 
death ; you are without the pale of law ; you are barbarians 
and savages : and I will put you \inder my heel." Henry 
came and said : " Now let us see if we cannot arrange our 
difficulties ; let us see, if we cannot live in peace and 
quiet ; " and the Irish people were charmed with the man's 
manner. Ah ! my friends, there was a black heart under 
that smiling face; but it was also true, — a fact that Mr. 
Froude acknowledges, — that Henry YIII. had a certain 
amount of popularity with the Irish people ; which proves 
that, if England only knew how to treat us with a certain 
amount of kindness, they would, long since, have won the 
heart of Ireland, instead of alienating and embittering it by 
the injustice as much as by the cruelty of their laws. (Ap- 
plause.) And this is what I meant on last Tuesday night, 
when I said that the English contempt of Irishmen is really 
the evil that lies deep at the root of all the bad spirit that 
exists between the two nations \ for the simple reason that 
the Irish people are too intellectual, too strong, too ener- 
getic, too pure of race, and of blood too ancient and too 
proud, to be despised. 

And now, my friends, Mr. Froude, in his second lecture, 
gave us a proof of the great love the Irish people had for 
Henry YIII. He says they were so fond of that King that 
3* 



58 ENGLISH MISRULE' IN IRELAND, 

actually, at his request, Ireland threw the Pope overboard. 
I use the gentleman's own words : '• Ireland threw the 
Pope overboard ! " No, Mr. Froude, fond as we were of 
your glorious hero, Henry YIII., we were not so enamored 
of him, we had not fallen so deeply in love with him as to 
give up the Pope for him. "What are the facts of the case ? 
Henry, about the year 1530, got into difficulties with the 
Pope, which ended in his denying his authority and supremacy 
as the head of the Catholic Church. He then picked out an 
apostate monk, — a man who gave up his faith, — a man with- 
out a shadow of either conscience, character, or virtue, — 
and he had him consecrated as the first Protestant Arch- 
bishop of Dublin. He was an Englishman named Brown — 
George Brown ; — and Henry sent him over to Dublin, in 
the year 1534, with a commission to get the Irish nation to 
follow in the wake of the English, and to " throw the Pope 
overboard " and acknowledge the supremacy of Henry. 
Brown arrived in Dublin. He called the Bishops together 
— the Bishops of the Catholic Church ; and he said to them : 
" You must change your allegiance. You must give up the 
Pope, and take Henry, King of England, in his stead." The 
Arclibishop of Armagh, in those days, was an Englishman 
whose name was Cromer; and the moment the old man 
heard these words, he rose up from the Council Board and 
said: ''What blasphemy is this I hear? Ireland will never 
change her faith ; Ireland never will renounce her Catholicity ; 
and she would have to renounce it by renouncing the head 
of the Catholic Church." (Applause.) And all the Bish- 
ops of Ireland followed the Primate, all the priests of Ire- 
land followed the Primate ; and George Brown wrote the 
most lugubrious letter home to his protector, Thomas Crom- 
well, telling him : ''I can make nothing of this people ; and 
I would return to England, only I am afraid the King would 
have my head taken off." 



THE TUDORS IN IRELAND, 59 

Three years later, liowever, Brov/n and the Lord Deputy 
summoned a Parliament, and it was at this Parliament of 
1537, according to Mr. Froude, that "Ireland threw the 
Pope overboard." Now, what are the facts? A Parlia- 
ment was assembled ; and, from time immemorial, in Ireland, 
whenever a Parliament was assembled, there were fliree 
delegates, called proctors, from every Catholic diocese in 
Ireland, who sat in the House of Commons, in virtue of their 
office ; — three priests from every diocese in Ireland. When 
this Parliament was called, the first thing they did was to 
banish the proctors and deprive them of their seats in the 
House. Without the slightest justice, without the slightest 
show or pretence of either right, or law, or justice, the 
proctors were excluded ; and so the ecclesiastical element — 
the Church element — was completely precluded from that 
Parliament of 1537. Then, partly by promises, partly by 
bribes, partly by threats, this venal Parliament of the 
'' Pale," — this English Parliament, — this Parliament of the 
rotten little boroughs that surrounded Dublin, and the five 
half-counties that we have seen, — willingly took an oath 
that Henry was the head of the Church ; and Mr. Froude 
calls this the apostasy of the Irish nation ! With that 
strange want of knowledge (for I can call it nothing else,) 
of our religion, he imagines that Ireland remained Catholic, 
even though he asserts that she gave up the Pope. They 
took, he says, the oath — Bishops and all — and thereby ac- 
knowledged the supremac}^ of Henry YIII. But, neverthe- 
less, they did not become Protestants ; they still remained 
Catholics ; and the reason why they did not take the same 
oath to Elizabeth, was because Elizabeth insisted on their 
taking the Protestant religion as well as the oath of suprem- 
acy. I answer him, at once, and will set him riglit upon 
this question. The Catholic Church teaches, and has always 
taught, that no man is a Catholic who is not in communion 



60 ENGLISH MISRULE EST IRELAND, 

of obedience with the Pope of Rome. Henry VIII. , who 
was a learned man, had too much theology, and too much 
logic, and too much sense to become what is called a Protes- 
tant. He never embraced the doctrines of Luther ; and he 
held on to every iota of Catholic doctrine to the last day of 
his life, save and except that he refused to acknowledge the 
Pope. But, in the day that Henry YIII. refused to ac- 
knowledge the Pope, he ceased to be a Catholic. And to 
pretend or to hint that the Irish people were so ignorant 
as to imagine that they could " throw the Pope overboard," 
and still remain Catholic, is to offer to the genius and in- 
telligence of Ireland a gratuitous insult. (Cheers and ap- 
plause.) It is true that some of the Bishops apostatized : I 
can call it ^nothing else. They took the oath of supremacy 
to 'Henry YIII., and their names, — living in the execration 
of Irish history, — are : Eugene McGinnis, Bishop of Down 
and Conor; Koland Burke (I am sorry to say). Bishop of 
Clonfert ; La,urence McLaughlin, Bishop of Clonmacnoise : 
Mathew Saunders, Bishop of Ossory ; and Hugh O' Sullivan, 
Bishop of Clogher. Five bishops only apostatized, the rest 
of Ireland's episcopacy remained faithful; — and George 
Brovfn, the apostate Archbishop, acknowledges in a letter, 
written at this time, that of all the priests of the diocese of 
Dublin he could only find three that would take the oath to 
Henry YIII. There was a priest down in Cork, — he was 
an Irishman, rector of Shandon ; his name was Dominic 
Tyrrell. He was offered the Bishopric of Cork, if he took 
the oath ; and he took it. There was a man named Wil- 
liam Myah ; he was offered the Diocese of Kildare if he 
took tlie oath ; and he took it. There was another, Alex- 
ander Devereux, Abbot of Dunbrody ; he Avas offered the 
Diocese of Ferns, in the county of ^Yexford, in order to in- 
duce him to swear allegiance to the English King : and he 
did it. These are all the names that represent what Mr. 



THE TUDOBS ZiY IRELAND, 61 

Froude calls the national apostasy of Ireland. Out of so 
many hundreds, eight men were found wanting; and Mr. 
Froude turns round, quietly and calmly, and tells us that 
the Irish Bishops and people "threw the Pope overboard." 

He makes another assertion, and I regret he made it. I 
regret it, because there is much in the learned gentleman 
that I admire and esteem. He asserts that the Bishops of 
Ireland, in these days, were immoral men ; that they had 
families ; that they were not like the venerable men whom 
we see in the episcopacy of to-day. Now, I answer, that 
there is not a shred of testimony to bear up Mr. Eroude in 
this wild assertion. I have read the history of Ireland — 
national, civil, ecclesiastical — as far as I could ; and no- 
where have I seen even an allegation, much less a proof, of 
immorality against the Irish clergy, or their Bishops, at the 
time of the Beformation. (Applause.) But, perhaps, when 
Mr. Froude said this, he meant the apostate Bishops. If so, 
I am willing to grant him whatever he chooses in regard 
to them, and whatever charge he lays upon them, the heav- 
ier it is, the more pleased I am to see it coming from that 
source. 

The next passage in the relation of Henry YIII. to Ire- 
land, goes to prove that Ireland did not " throw the Pope 
overboard." My friends, in the year 1541, a Parliament 
assembled in Dublin, an^ declared that Henry VIII. was 
" King of Ireland." They had been four hundred years and 
more fighting for that title ; and at length it was conferred 
by the Irish Parliament upon the English monarch. Two 
years later, in gratitude to the Irish Parliament, Henry 
called all the Irish Chieftains over to a grand assembly at 
Greenwich ; and on the 1st day of July, 1543, he gave the 
Irish Chieftains their English titles. Q-Neill, of Ulster, 
got the title of Earl of Tyrone ; the glorious O'Donnell, 
the title of Earl of Tyrconnell ; Ulic McWilliam Burke 



62 ENGLISH MISRULE IJSf IRELAND, 

was called the Earl of Clanricarde ; Fitzpatrick got the 
name of Baron of Ossory ; and they returned to Ireland 
with their new titles. Henry, free, open-handed, generous 
fellow, as he was — he was really very generous — gave those 
Chieftains not only the titles, but a vast amount of proper- 
ty ; only it happened to be stolen from the Catholic Church. 
He was an exceedingly generous man with other people's 
goods. In order to promote the authorized reformation — 
not Protestantism, but his own reformation — in Ireland, 
Henry gave to these Irish Earls, with their English titles, 
all the abbey lands and convent and church lands that lay 
vvithin their possessions. The consequence was that he 
enriched them ; and to the eternal shame of the O'Neill 
and O'Donnell, McWilliam Burke and Fitzpatrick of Os- 
sory, they had the cowardliness and weakness to accept 
those gifts at his hand. They came home with the spoil 
of the monasteries, and their English titles. And now, 
mark. The Irish people were as true as steel in that 
day when the Irish Chieftains proved false to their country 
and their God. Nowhere in the previous liistorj^ of Ireland 
do we read of the Clans rising against their Chieftains. 
Nowhere do we read of the O'Neill or O'Donnell dispos- 
sessed by his own people. But on this occasion, when they 
came home; mark what followed. O'Brien, Earl of Tho- 
mond, when he arrived in Munster, found half his domin- 
ions in revolt against him. McWilliam Burlfe, Earl of 
Clanricarde, when his people heard that their leader had 
accepted the Abbey lands, the first thing they did was to 
depose him, and set up against him another man, with the 
title of The McWilliam Oughter de Burgh. Con O'Neill, 
Earl of Tyrone, when he came home to Ulster, was taken 
by his own son, and clapped into jail ; and he died there, 
all his people abandoning him. O'Donnell, Earl of Tyr- 
connell, came home, and his own son and all his people rose 



THE TUDOBS m IRELAND, 63 

against him and drove him out from the midst of them. 
Now, I say, in the face of all this — Mr. Froude is not justi- 
fied in stating that '' Ireland threw the Pope overboard." 
These Chieftains did not renounce the Catholic reliction : 
they only renounced the Papal supremacy. They did not 
come home Protestants ; they only came home schismatics, 
and very bad Catholics ; and Ireland would not stand them. 
Henry died in 1547 ; and I verily believe that, with all 
the badness of his heart, had he lived a few years longer, 
he would not have been a curse, but a blessing to Ireland ; 
for the simple reason that those who came after him were 
worse than himself. He was succeeded by his child-son, 
Edward VI., who was under the care or guardianship of the 
Duke of Somerset. Somerset was a thoroughgoing Protes- 
tant. Somerset did not believe in the Papal supremacy ; 
h(B did not believe in the Blessed Sacrament, nor in anything 
that savored of the teachings of the Catholic Church. He 
was opposed to them all. As soon as Henry was dead, and 
young Edward had been proclaimed King, he sent over to 
Ireland orders to put the laws in force against the Catholic 
Church. Consequently the churoiies were pillaged ; the 
Catholic priests were driven out ; and as Mr. Froude puts 
it, " the emblems of superstition were pulled down." The 
emblems of superstition, as Mr. Froude calls them, were 
the figure of Jesus Christ crucified, the statues of His 
Blessed Mother, and the pictures of His Saints. All these 
things were pulled dowm and destroyed. The crucifix was 
trampled under foot. The ancient statue of Our Lady of 
Trim, in the county of Meath, was publicly burned. Tlie 
churches were rifled and sacked ; and, as Mr. Froude elo- 
quently says, '^ Ireland was taught the lesson that she must 
yield to the new order of things or stand by the Pope." 
'' Irish traditions and ideas," Mr. Froude says, '' became 
inseparably linked with religion." Glory to you, Mr. 



64 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

Fronde. lie goes on to say in eloqneirt language : ^' Ire- 
land chose her place on the Pope's side, and chose it irrev- 
ocably ; and from that time the cause of the Catholic re- 
ligion and Irish independence became inseparably and irrev- 
ocably one." 

Edward YI. died after a short reign; and then came 
Queen Mary, knovv^n in England by the title of " Bloody 
Mary." She was a Catholic ; and without doubt, she per- 
secuted her Protestant subjects. But Mr. Froude, speaking 
of her in his lecture, says : '' There was no persecution of 
Protestants in Ireland, because there were no Protestants 
to be persecuted." And he goes on to say : " Those who 
were in Ireland, v/hen" Mary came to the throne, fied." 
Now, my friends, I must take the learned historian to task 
on this. The insinuation is, that if the Protestants had 
, been in Ireland, the Irish Catholic people would have per- 
secuted them. The impression he desires to leave on the 
mind is that we. Catholics, would be only too glad to im- 
brue our hands in the blood of our fellow-citizens, on the 
question of religion, or difference in doctrine. He does 
this to convey the impression, as much as to say that, if the 
Protestants were in Ireland, whatever chance they might 
have in any other country, they had no chance at all in 
Ireland. 

Now, Vv^hat are the facts, — the historical facts? The 
facts are that, during the reign of Edward YI., and during 
the latter years of his father's reign, certain apostates from 
the Catholic Church were sent over to Ireland as Bishops ; 
— men, whom even English histpry convicts and condemns 
for almost every crime. As soon as Mary came to the 
throne, these gentlemen did not wait to be ordered out; 
they went out of their own accord. It was not a question, 
at all, of fche Irish people ; it was not a question for Ire- 
land ; it was a question between the Queen of England and 



THE TUDOES m IRELAND. 65 

certain English Bishops that were foisted upon the Irish 
Church. They thought it the best of their play to clear 
out at once ; and I- verily believe that they acted very pru- 
dently. But so far as regards the Irish people, I claim for 
my native land that she never persecuted on account of re- 
ligion. I am proud, in addressing an American audience, 
to be able to put in this high claim for Ireland. The genius 
of the Irish people is not a persecuting one. There is not a 
people on the face of the earth so attached to the Catholic 
religion as the Irish race : but there is not a people on the 
face of the earth so unwilling to persecute or to shed blood 
in the cause of religion as the Irish. And, here are my 
proofs : Mr. Froude says that the Protestants fled out of 
Ireland as soon as Queen Mary came to the throne; but Sir 
James Ware, in his '' Annals," tells us that the Protestants 
were being persecuted in England under Mary, and that 
they actually fled over to Ireland for protection. He gives 
even the names of some of them. He tells us that John 
Harvey, Abel Ellis, Joseph Edwards, and Henry Hall, na- 
tives of Cheshire, came over to Ireland to avoid the perse- 
cution that was raging in England ; and they brought v/ith 
them a Welsh Protestant minister named Thomas Jones. * 
These four gentlemen were received so cordially, were wel- 
comed so hospitably, that they actually fovmded highly re- 
spectable mercantile families in Dublin. 

But we have another magnificent proof that the Irish are 
not a persecuting race. When James II. assembled his 
Catholic Parliament in Ireland, in 1689, — after they had 
been for more than one hundred years under the lash of their 
Protestant fellow-citizens, after they had been robbed and 
plundered, imprisoned and put to death for their adherence 
to the Catholic faith, — at last the wheel gave a turn ; and, in 
1G89, the Catholics were up and the Protestants were down. 
That Parliament assembled to the number of two hundred and 



66 ENGLISH MISEULE IN IRELAND. 

twenty-eight members. The Celts — the Irish, the Catholic 
element — had a sweeping majority. What was the first law 
that they made ? The very first law that that Catholic Par- 
liament passed was as follows : — 

'' We hereby decree that it is the law of this land of Ire- 
land that, neither now nor ever again, shall any man be per- 
secuted for his religion." 

That was the retaliation we took on them. Was it not 
magnificent ? Was it not grand ? a magnificent specimen of 
that spirit of Christianity, that spirit of forgiveness and. 
charity without which, if it be not in a man, all the dog- 
matic truths that ever were revealed will not save or enno- 
ble him. 

Now, coming to '' good Queen Bess," as she is called, I 
must, say that Mr. Froude bears very heavily upon her, and 
speaks of her really in language as terrific in its severity as 
any that I could use, and far more, for I have not the learn- 
ing nor the eloquence of Mr. Froude. He says one little 
thing of her, however, that is worthy of remark. He 
says : — 

" Elizabeth was reluctant to draw the sword ; but when 
she did draw it, she never sheathed it until the star of free- 
dom was fixed upon her banner, never to pale." 

Now, that is a very eloquent passage ; but the soul of elo- 
quence is truth. Is it true, historically, that Elizabeth was 
reluctant to draw the sword ? Answer it, ye Irish annals ! 
Answer it, oh history of Ireland ! Elizabeth came to the 
throne in 1558. The following year, in 1559, there was a 
Parliament assembled by her order in Dublin. What do 
you think were the laws of that Parliament ? It -was not a 
Catholic Parliament, nor an Irish Parliament. It consisted 
of seventy-six members. Generally speaking, Parliaments 
in Ireland used to have from two hundred and twenty to two 



THE TUDOBS m IBELANB, . 67 

hundred and thirty members. This Parliament of Elizabeth 
consisted of seventy-six picked men. The laws that that 
Parliament made were, first : — " Any clergyman not using 
the Book of Common Prayer (the Protestant prayer-book), 
or using any other form, either in public or in private, the 
first time that he is discovered, shall be deprived of his bene- 
fice for one year, and suffer imprisonment in jail for six 
months. For the second offence he shall forfeit his income 
forever, and be put in jail at the Queen's good pleasure; " 
to be let out whenever she thought proper. For the third 
offence he was to be put in close confinement for life. This 
was the lady that was " reluctant to draw the sword ! " and, 
my friends, remember that this was the very year after she 
was crowned Queen — the very next year. She scarcely 
waited a year. This was the woman ''reluctant to draw the 
sword ! " So much for the priests ; now for the laymen. If 
a layman were discovered using any other prayer-book except 
Queen Elizabeth's prayer-book, he was to be put in jail for 
one year ; and if he were caught doing it a second time, lie was 
to be put in prison for the rest of his life. Every Sunday 
the people were obliged to go to the Protestant Church ; and 
if any one refused to go, for every time that he refused he 
was fined twelve pence — that would be about twelve shillings 
of our present money ; and besides the fine of twelve pence, 
he was to '* incur the censures of the church ! " '' The star 
of freedom," says Mr. Froude, '' was never to pale." '' The 
Queen drew the sword in the cause of the star of freedom ! " 
But, my friends, freedom meant whatever fitted in Eliza- 
beth's mind. Freedom meant slavery tenfold increased, with 
the addition of religious persecution, to the unfortunate 
Irish. If this be Mr. Froude's idea of the star of freedom, 
all I can say is, the sooner such stars fall from heaven and 
the firmament of the world's history, the better. 

In what state was the Irish Church? Upon that subject 



68 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

we have the authority of the Protestant historian, Leland. 
There were two hundred and twenty parish churches in 
Meath, and in a fevf years time there were only one hundred 
and five of them left with the roofs on. 

'' All over the kingdom" (says Leland) " the people were 
left without any religious worship, and under the pretence 
of obeying the orders of the State, they seized all the most 
valuable furniture of the churches, which was actually ex- 
posed for sale without decency or reserve." 

A number of hungry adventurers were let loose upon the 
Irish churches and upon the Irish people by Elizabeth. 
They not only robbed them and plundered their churches, 
but they shed the blood of the Bishops and priests and of 
the people in torrents, as Mr. Froude himself acknowledges. 
'He tells us that, after the second rebellion of the Geraldines, 
such was the state to which the fair Province of Munster was 
reduced, that you might go through the land, from the farther- 
most point of Kerry until you came into the eastern plains 
of Tipperary, and you would not as much as hear the whis- 
tle of ploughboy, or behold the face of a living man. But 
the trenches and ditches were filled with the corpses of the 
people, and the country was reduced to a howling, desolate 
wilderness. The poet Spenser describes it emphatically, in 
language the most terrific. Even he, case-hardened as he 
was, — for he was one of the plunderers and persecutors him- 
self—acknowledges that the state of Munster was such that 
no man could look upon it with a dry eye. Sir ELenry Sid- 
ney, one of Elizabeth's own deputies, addressing her, says 
of the overthrown churches : — 

'' There are not, I am sure, in any region where the name 
of Christ is professed, such horrible spectacles, as are here 
to be beheld; as the burning of villages, the ruin of 
churches, — yea, the view of the bones and skulls of the 
dead, who, partly by murder and partly by famine, have died 



THE TUDORS IN IBELAND. 69 

in tlie fields. It- is such that hardly any Christian can with 
a dry eye behold." 

Her own Minister, — her own General! — there is his 
testimony of the state to which this terrible woman reduced 
"unhappy Ireland. Strafford, another English authority, 
says : — " I knew it was bad in Ireland ; but that it was so 
stark-wrought I did not believe." 

In the midst of all this persecution, what was still the 
reigning idea in the mind of the English Government ? To 
root out and to extirpate the Irish from their own land, 
added to which was now the element of religious discord and 
persecution. It is evident that this was still in the minds 
of the English people. Elizabeth, who, Mr. Froude says, 
" never dispossessed an Irishman of an acre of his land," dur- 
ing the terrible war which she waged in the latter days of her 
reign against the heroic Hugh O'Neill, of Ulster, threw out 
such hints as these : '^ The more slaughter there is, the bet- 
ter it will be for my English subjects ; the more land they 
will get." This is the woman, who, Mr. Froude tells us, 
never confiscated, and would never listen to the idea of 
confiscation of property ! This woman, when the Geraldines 
were destroyed, took the whole of the vast estates of the 
Earl of Desmond, and gave them all, quietly and calmly, to 
certain English planters, that she seiit over from Lancashire, 
Cheshire, Devonshire, and Somersetshire. And in the face 
of these historic truths, recoi'ded and stamped on history, I 
cannot understand how any man can come forward and say 
of this atrocious woman that whatever she did she intended 
it for the good of Ireland. 

In 1602, she died, after reigning forty-one years, leaving 
Ireland at the hour of her death one vast slaughter-house. 
Munster was reduced to the state described by Spenser. 
Connaught was made a wilderness through the rebellion of 
the Clanricardes, or the Burke family. Ulster, through the 



YO ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

agency of Lord Mountjoy, v/as left the very picture of deso- 
lation. The glorious Eed Hugh O'Donnell and the magnifi- 
cent O'Xeill were crushed and defeated after fifteen years of 
war. And the consequence was that, when James the First 
succeeded Elizabeth, he found Ireland almost a wilderness. 
What did he do ? He acted well at first. He promised 
the Irish that they should be left their lands. He succeeded 
to the throne of England in 1G03 ; and for four years — I 
must give him the credit — for four years he kept his word. 
But, in 1G07, Hugh O'Neill, and O'Donnell, of Tyrconnell, 
fled from their country to escape imprisonment ; and then, 
Sir Arthur Chichester, an Englishman, the agent of the 
Kingj developed one of the most extraordinary systems that 
ever was heard of in the relation of one country to another. 
They took the whole of the province of Ulster, and scarcely 
left to the Irish a foot of land of their finest province. 
They transferred it from the original population ; and handed 
it over to settlers from England and from Scotland. It was 
called ^'The Plantation of Ulster." They gave to the 
Protestant Archbishop of Armagh 43,000 acres of the finest 
land in Ireland. They gave to Trinity College, in Dublin, 
30,000 acres. They gave to the " Skinners " and " Cord- 
wainers " and " Drysalters," all those corporations of trade 
in London, 208,000 acres of the finest land in Ireland. 
They brought over a colony of Scotch Presbyterians, and of 
English Protestants, and gave them tracts of a thousand and 
fifteen hundred and two thousand acres of land, making 
them swear, as they did so, that they would not employ one 
single Irishman, or single Catholic, nor let them come near 
them. Thus millions of acres of the finest land in Ireland 
were taken at one blow from the Irish ; and the people were 
crushed out of their property. 

Mr. Eroude, in his rapid historical sketch, said that all 
this, of course, bred revenge; and he tells us that, in 1G41, 



THE TUDOBS IN IRELAND. Yi 

the Irish rose in rebellion. So they did. Now, he makes 
one statement, and with the refutation of that statement I 
will close this lecture. Mr. Froude tells us that, in the 
rising under Sir Phelim O'lSeii, in 1642, there were 38,000 
Protestants massacred by the Irish. That is a grave charge, 
a most terrific one, in the case of a people : and if it be 
true, all I can say is that I blush for my fathers. But if it 
be not true, why, in the name of God, repeat it ? Why not 
wipe it out from the records for a lie as it is. Is it true? 
The Irish rose -under Sir Phelim O'xseill. At that time 
there v/as a Protestant parson in Ireland who called himself 
a Minister of the Word of God. He gives an account of 
the whole transaction in a letter to the people of England, 
begging of them to help their fellow-Protestants of Ireland. 
Here are his words : ^^ It was the intention of the Irish to 
massacre all the English. On Saturday they were to disarm 
them, on Sunday to seize all their cattle and goods, and on 
Monday they were to cut all the English throats. The 
former they executed ; the latter — that is the massacre — 
they failed in." Petit, another English authority, tells us, 
that there were 30,000 Protestants massacred at that time. 
A man of the name of May foots it up at 200,000. I sup- 
pose he thought " in for a penny in for a jDOund." But 
there was an honest Protestant clergyman in Ireland who 
examined minutely into the details of the whole conspiracy, 
and of all the evils that came from it. What does he tell 
us ? 

"I have discovered" (he says — and he gives proof, 
State papers and authentic records) — " that the Irish Cath- 
olics in that rising massacred 2,100 Protestants; that other 
Protestants said there were 1,600 more ; and that some 
Irish authorities themselves say there were 3,000, making 
altogether 4,026 persons." 

This is the massacre that Mr. Froude speaks of; he tosses 



72 ENGLISH MISRULE IJSf IRELAND. 

it off, as if it were Gospel, — 38,000 Protestants were mas- 
sacred — that is to say, lie multiplies the original number by 
ten ; whereas JNIr. Warner, the authority in question, says 
actually that there were 2,100 ; and I am unwilling to be- 
lieve in the additional numbers that have been stated. And 
this is the way that history is written ! This is the way 
that people are left under a false impression ! 

And no w^ first of all, that we have seen the terrible nat- 
ure of the evils which fell upon Ireland in the days 
of Henry YIII., Elizabeth, and James I., I ^sk you, people 
of America, to set these two thoughts before your minds, 
contrast them, and give me a fair verdict. Is there any- 
thing recorded in history jnore terrible than the persistent, 
undying resolution, — so clearly manifested, — of the English 
Government to root out, extirpate and destro}^, the people 
of Ireland ? Is there anything recorded in history more 
unjust than this systematic, constitutional robbery of the 
people whom Almighty God created in that island, to 
whom he gave that island, and who have the aboriginal 
right to every inch of Irish soil ? On the other hand, can 
history bring forth a more magnificent spectacle than the 
calm, firm, united resolution with which Ireland stood in 
defence of her religion, giving up all things rather than sac- 
rifice what she conceived to be the cause of truth ? Mr. 
Eroude does not believe it is the cause of truth. I do 
not blame him. Every man has a right to his religious 
opinions. But Ireland believed it was the cause of truth; 
and Ireland stood for it like one man. I speak of all these 
things only historically. I do not believe in animosity. I am 
not a believer in bad blood. I do not believe, with Mr. 
Eroude, that the question of Ireland's difficulty must re- 
main without solution. I do not give it up in desj)air. But 
this I do say, that he has no right, nor has any other man 
the right, to come before the audience of America, — of 



THE TUDORS IN IRELAND, 73 

America, that has never persecuted in the cause of re- 
ligion, — of America, that respects the rights even of the 
meanest citizen upon her imperial soil, — and to ask that 
American people to sanction by their verdict the robberies 
and persecutions of which England is guilty. 
4 



THIED LECTUEE. 

(Delivered in the Academy of Music^ New Yovk^ ^ov. 19, 1872.) 

THE CROMWELLIAN ERA. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : We now approach, in answering 
Mr. Fronde, to some of the most awful periods of our his- 
tory. I confess that I approach this terrific ground with 
sadness, and I extremely regret that Mr. Fronde should 
have opened np questions which oblige an Irishman to 
undergo the pailo. of heart and anguish of spirit, which a re- 
vision of this portion of our history must occasion. 

The learned gentleman began his third lecture by remind- 
ing his audience that he had closed the second lecture with 
a reference to the rise, progress, and collapse of a great 
rebellion, which took place in Ireland in the year 1641 — 
tliat is to say, somewhat more than two hundred years ago. 
He made but a passing allusion- to that great event in our 
history ; and in that allusion — if he has been reported cor- 
rectly — he stated simply that the Irish rebelled in 1641 : 
that was his first statement — that it was a rebellion; 
secondly, that this rebellion began in massacre and ended 
in ruin ; thirdly^ that, for nine years, the Irish leaders had 
the destinies of their country in their hands ; and fourthly, 
that these nine years were years of anarchy and mutual 
slaughter. Nothing, therefore, can be imagined more melan- 
choly than the picture drawn by this learned gentleman of 
those nine sad years, and yet I will venture to say, and 
hope I shall be able to prove, that each of those four state- 
ments is without sufficient historical foundation. 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA. 75 

My first position is that the movement of 1641 was not a 
rebellion ; second, that it did not begin with massacre, 
although it ended in ruin ; third, that the Irish leadeis had 
not the destinies of their country in their hands during those 
nine years ; and fourth, that whether they had or not, 
those years were not a period of anarchy and mutual 
slaughter. They were but the opening to a far more terrific 
period. We must discuss these questions, my friends, 
calmly and historically. We must look upon them rather 
like antiquarians prying into the past, than with the living, 
warm feelings of men, whose blood boils up at the remem- 
brance of so much injustice and so much bloodshed. 

In order to understand these questions fully and fairly, it 
is necessary for us to go back to the historical events of the 
time. We find, then, that James I., the man who " plant- 
ed" Ulster, — that is to say, who confiscated, utterly and 
entirely, six of the fairest counties in Ireland, — an entire 
Province, — rooting out the aboriginal Irish Catholic inhabi- 
tants, even to a man, and giving the whole country to 
Scotch and English settlers of the Protestant religion, under 
the condition that they were not to employ even as much as 
an Irish laborer on their grounds — that they were to banish 
them all; — we find that this man died in 1625, and was 
succeeded by his unfortunate son, Charles I. When Charles 
came to the throne, bred up as he was in the traditions of a 
monarchy which Henry YIII. had rendered almost absolute, 
as we know; — whose absolute power was still continued 
under Elizabeth, under a form the most tyrannical ; — whose 
absolute power was continued by his own father, James I. ; 
— Charles came to the throne with the most exaggerated 
ideas of royal privilege and royal supremacy. But, during 
the days of his father, a new spirit had grown up in Scotland 
and in England. The form which Protestantism took in 
Scotland was the hard and uncompromising, and, I will add, 



76 EJS'GLISH MISnULE IJST IBELAIiD, 

cruel, form of Calvinism, in its most repellent aspect. The 
men who rose in Scotland in defence of their Presbyterian 
religion, rose not against Catholicity at all, but against the 
Episcopal Protestantism of England. They defended what 
they callpd the " Kirk," or the " Covenant." They fought 
bravely, I acknowledge, for it ; and they ended in establish- 
ing it as the religion of Scotland. Now, Charles I. was an 
Episcopalian Protestant of the most sincere and devoted 
kind. The Parliament of England, in the very first years 
of Charles, admitted members who were strongly tinged with 
Scotch Calvinism ; and they at once showed a refractory 
spirit to their King. He demanded of them certain subsi- 
dies, and they refused him. He asserted certain sovereign 
rights, and they denied them. But whilst all this was go- 
ing on in England, from the year 1630, to, let us say, the 
year 1641, what was taking place in Ireland? One Prov- 
ince of the land had been completely confiscated by James I. 
Charles I. was in want of money, for his own purposes ; his 
Parliament refused to grant him any ; and the poor, op- 
pressed, down-trodden, persecuted Catholics of Ireland im- 
agined, natui'ally enough, that the King, being in difficulties, 
would turn to them, and, perhaps, lend them a little counte- 
nance and a little favor, if they proclaimed their loyalty and 
stood by him. Accordingl}^, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, 
Lord Falkland — sincerely attached, as he was, to his royal 
master — hinted to the Catholics, and proposed to them, that, 
as they were under the most terrific penal laws, from the 
days of Elizabeth and James L, — that, perhaps-, if they 
should now petition the King, they would get certain 
^' graces " or concessions granted to them. What these 
^' graces " were, simply involved permission to live in their 
own land, and permission to worship their God according to 
the dictates of their own conscience. They asked for noth- 
ing more, and nothing more was promised to them. When 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA. 77 

their petition went before the King, his Koyal Majesty of 
England issued a proclamation, in which be declared that it 
was bis intention, and that he had plighted bis word, to 
grant to the Catholics, and to the people of Ireland, certain 
concessions and indidgences which he named by the name of 
" graces." No sooner did the newly-founded Puritan ele- 
ment, in England and in the Parliament, — that were fight- 
ing against their King, — no sooner did they hear that the 
slightest relaxation of the penal laws was to be granted to 
the Catholics • of Ireland, than they instantly rose and pro- 
tested that it should not be. And Charles — to his eternal 
disgrace — broke his word with the Catholics of Ireland, af- 
ter they had sent him £120,000 in acknowledgment of his 
promise. More than this, it was suspected that Lord Falk- 
land was too mild a man, too just a man, to be allowed to 
remain as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was recalled ; 
and, after a short lapse. Went worth, who was afterwards 
Earl Strafford, A^as sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant. 

Wentworth, on his arrival, summoned a Parliament, which 
met in the year 1634. He told them the difficulties the 
King was in ; he told them how the Parliament in England 
was rebelling against him ; and how he looked to his Irish 
subjects as loyal. He, perhaps, told them that, amongst 
Catholics, loyalty was not a mere sentiment, but an unshaken 
principle, resting ujjon conscience and religion. And then 
he assured them that Charles, the King of England, still in- 
tended to keep his word and grant them the concessions or 
"graces." 

Next came the usual demand for money ; and the Irish 
Parliament granted six subsidies of £50,000 each. Strafford 
wrote to the King, congratulating him on getting so much 
money out of Ireland; "For," said he, "your Majesty re- 
members, that you and I expected only £30,000, and they 
have granted subsidies of £50,000." More than this, they 



78 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

granted him 8,000 infantry and 1,000 horse, to fight against 
his Scottish rebellious subjects and. enemies. 

The Parliament met the following year, in 1635 ; and 
what do you think was the fulfilment of the Royal promise 
to the Catholics of Ireland ? Strafibrd had got the money. 
He did not wish to compromise his master, ih^ King ; and 
he took upon himself, and fixed upon his own memory the 
indelible shame and disgrace of breaking his word, which 
he had plighted^ and disappointing the Catholics of Ireland. 
Then, in 1635, the real character of this man came out; and 
what do you think was the measure he proposed ? He in- 
stituted a Commission for the express purpose of confiscat- 
ing, — in addition to Ulster, that was already gone, — the 
whole Province of Connaught, so as not to leave an Irish- 
man or a Catholic one square inch of ground in that land. 
This he called the '' Commission of Defective Titles." The 
commissioners were men that were to inquire into the title 
that every man had to his property, and to inquire into it 
with the express and avowed purpose of finding a flaw in it, 
if they could, and confiscating the land to the Crown of Eng- 
land. Now, remember how much was gone already, my 
friends. The whole of Ulster was confiscated by James I. 
The same King had taken the county of Longford from the 
O'Farrells, who owned it from time immemorial. He had 
seized upon Wicklow, and taken it from the O^Tooles and 
O'Byrnes. He had taken the northern part of the county 
of Wexford from the O'Kavanaghs. He had taken Iracken, 
in the Queen's County, from the McGeoghegans. He had 
taken Kilcoursey, in the King's County, from the O'Molloys. 
And noWj with the whole of Ulster, and the better part of 
Leinster in his hands, this Minister had instituted a Com- 
mission by which he was to obtain the whole of the Province 
of Connaught, root out the native Irish population, expel 
every man that owned a rood of land in the Province, and 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. Y9 

reduce tliem to beggary, starvation, and death. Here is the 
description of his plan as given by Leland, a historian who 
was hostile to Ireland's faith and Ireland's nationality. Lel- 
and thus describes the business : — 

" This project was nothing less than to subvert the title 
of every estate in every part of Connaught, — a project which, 
when first proposed in the late reign, was received with hor- 
ror and amazement, but which suited the undismayed and 
enterprising genius of Lord Wentworth." 

Strafford's Commission, accordingly, began in the County 
of Roscommon, passed thence into Sligo, thence to Mayo, 
and thence to Galway. Now, mark how he managed this 
tribunal. The only way by which a title could be upset, 
was by having a jury of twelve men, to declare by their 
verdict whether the title was valid or not. Strafford began 
by packing the juries, — packing them ! It is the old story 
over again, — the old policy that has been continued down 
to our time, — the policy of a packed and prejudiced jury. 
He told the jury, before the trial began, that he expected 
them to find a verdict for the king ; and between bribing 
them and threatening them, he got juries to find for him, 
until he came into the county of Galway. And to the 
honor of old Galway be it said, that as soon as the Commis- 
sion arrived in that county, they could not find twelve jurors 
in the county of Galway base enough and wicked enough to 
confiscate the lands of tlieii* fellow-subjects. What was the 
result ? The result was that the county Galway jurors 
were called to Dublin before the Castle County Chamber, 
and every man of them was fined £4,000, and was put into 
prison until the fine was paid. Every inch of their prop- 
erty was taken from them ; and the High Sheriff of the 
county Galway, not being a wealthy man, died in jail be- 
cause he was not able to pay his fine. More than this. 
Not content with threatening the juries, and coercing them, 



80 ENGLISH MISRULE IN lEELAND. 

my Lord Strafford went to the Judges, and told them that 
they were to get four shillings in the pound for the value of 
every piece of property they confiscated to the Crown of 
England. Then, he boasted, publicly, that he had made 
the Chief Baron and the Judges attend to this business as 
if it were their own private concern. This is the kind of 
rule the English historian comes to America to ask the hon- 
est and upright citizens of this free country to indorse by 
their verdict, and thereby to make themselves accomplices 
of English fraud and robbery. 

In this same year, Strafford instituted another tribunal in 
Ireland, which he called the " Court of Wards;" and do 
you know what this was ? It was found that the Irish peo- 
ple, gentle and simple, as they were, were very unwilling to 
become Protestants. I have not a harsh word to say of 
Protestants. But this I will say, that every high-minded 
Protestant in the world must admire the strength and fidel- 
ity with which Ireland, because of her conscience, clung to 
her ancient faith. This tribunal was instituted in order to 
get the heirs of the Catholic gentry, and to bring them up 
in the Protestant religion. And it is to this '' Court of 
Wards" that we owe the significant fact that some of the 
most ancient and the best names in Ireland, — the names of 
men whose ancestors fought for faith and fatherland, — are 
now Protestants, and the enemies of their Catholic fellow- 
subjects. It was by this, and such means as this, that the 
men of my own' name became Protestants. There was no 
drop of Protestant blood in the veins of the Dun Earl, or 
Ped Earl of Clanricarde. There was no drop of any other 
than Catholic blood in the veins of the heroic Burkes who 
fought during the long five hundred years that went before 
this time. (Applause.) There was no- Protestant blood in 
the O'Briens of Munster, or in the glorious O'Donnells 
and O'Neills of Ulster, that are Protestants to-day. Let 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA, 81 

no Protestant American citizen here imagine that I am 
speaking in disdain of him or his religion. No ; but as a 
historian, I am pointing out the means, — which every high- 
minded man must pronounce to be nefarious, — by which 
the aristocracy of Ireland were obliged to change their re- 
ligion. 

The Irish, meantime, waited, and waited in vain, for the 
fulfilment of the King's promise, and the concession of the 
"graces," as they were called. At length, matters grew 
desperate between Charles and his Parliament ; and, in the 
year 1640, he again renewed his promise to the Irish 
people ; and he called a Parlia.ment which gave him four 
subsidies, 8,000 men, and 1,000 horse, to figlit against the 
Scotch, who had rebelled against him. Strafford went home 
rejoicing that he had got those subsidies and this body of 
men ; but no sooner did he arrive in England, than the Par- 
liament, now in rebellion, laid hold of him. In that same 
year, 1G40, Strafford's head was cut off; and he w^ould be a 
strange Irishman that would regret it. 

Meantime, the people of Scotland rose in armed rebel- 
lion against their King. They marched into England, and 
what do you think they made by their movement ? They 
got a full acknowled^ent of their religion, which was not 
the Protestant, but Presbyterian ; they got £300,000 ; and 
they got, for several months, £850 a day to support their 
army. Then they retired into their own country, having 
achieved the purposes for which they had rebelled ; and, in 
the meantime, the Catholics of Ireland were ground into 
the very dust. AVhat wonder, I ask you, that, seeing the 
King so afraid of his English people, though personally in- 
clined to grant these '^ graces " — as he had declared that he 
wished to grant them ; he had declared that it was his in- 
tention to grant them ; he had plighted his royal word to 
grant them, — what wonder that the Irish thought they had 



82 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

every evidence that, if the King were free, he would grant 
them ? But he was not free, because his Parliament and 
the Puritan faction in England were in rebellion against 
him. So the Irish said : '^ Our King is not free ; if he 
were, he would be kind to us ; let us rise, then, in the 
name of the King and assert our own rights." Thej rose 
in 1641; the}'" rose like one man; every Irishman^ft-and 
every Catholic in Ireland, rose on the 23d of October, 1641, 
with the exception of the Catholic Lords of the " Pale." 
And, now, I give you the reasons of this rising, as recorded 
in the " Memoirs " of Lord Castlehaven, who was by no 
means prejudiced in favor of Ireland. He tells us that they 
rose for six reasons. The first was because they were gen- 
erally looked down upon as a conquered nation, and seldom 
or never treated like natural or free-born subjects. The old 
evil still coming up, my dear friends. The very first reason 
given by this Englishman, why the Irish people rose, was 
that the English people treated them contemptuously. Oh ! 
when will England learn to treat her subjects or her friends 
with common respect? When will that proud, stubborn 
Anglo-Saxon haughtiness condescend to urbanity and kind- 
liness in dealing with those around them ? I said it in my 
first lecture ; I said it in my second lecture ; and I now re- 
peat it in this, that it was the contempt as much as the hat- 
red of Englislmaen for Irishmen that lay at the root — that 
lies at the root to-day — of that bitter spirit and terrible an- 
tagonism that exists between those two nations. 

The second reason given by my Lord Castlehaven is, 
that the Irish saw that six whole counties in Ulster were 
escheated to the Crown and little or nothing restored to the 
natives ; but in great part bestowed by King James L, on 
his own countrymen — the Scotch. The third reason was, 
that in Straflbrd's time, the Crown laid claim to the 
counties of Roscommon, Mayo, Galway, and Cork, and to 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. 83 

parts of Tipperary, Wicklow, Limerick, and other counties. 
The fourth reason was, that great severities were used 
against the Roman Catholics, which to a people so fond of 
their religion as the Irish were, was no small inducement to 
make them, whilst there was an opportunity, stand upon 
their guard. The fifth reason was, they saw how the Scots, 
by pretending grievances, and taking up arms to get them 
redressed, had not only gained divers privileges and im- 
munities, but a grant of £300,000, for their visit to 
England, besides £850 a day for several months together. 
The sixth and last reason was that they saw the storm 
drawing near ; — such a misunderstanding arose between the 
King and the Parliament, that they believed the King 
would grant them anything that they could in reason de- 
mand ; at least more now than they could otherwise expect. 
Now, I ask if these reasons were not sufficient ? I appeal 
to the American people, — I appeal to men who know 
what civil and religious liberty means to a proud, high- 
spirited people, whose spirit was never broken, and never 
will be ; — to a people not inferior to the Anglo-Saxon, either 
in gifts of intellect or in bodily energy ; for a people thus 
persecuted, thus down-trodden, — as our fathers were, — would 
not any one of these reasons be sufficient justification to 
rise? And, with this accumulation of causes, would they 
not have been the meanest of mankind if they had not 
seized upon that opportunity ? 

An English Protestant writer of the times, in that very 
year 1G41, writing in Howell's Ilihernicon^ says that the 
Irish had sundry grievances and grounds of complaint touch- 
ing both their estates and consciences, which they pretended 
to be far greater than those of the Scots. '' For, still, they 
think," he says, ^Hhat if the Scots were sufiered to intro- 
duce a new religion, it was a reason that they should not 



84 EFGLISH MISRULE Ilsf IRELAND, 

be punished for the exercise of their own, which they glo- 
ried never to have altered." 

There was another reason for the revolt, my friends, and 
a very potent one. It was this : Charles had the weakness 
and the folly — I can call it nothing else — to leave at the 
head of the Irish Government two Lords Justices, named 
Sir John Borlaese and Sir William Parsons. These vfere 
both ardent Puritans and partisans of the Parliament, 
They were anxious to see the fall of the English monarch, — 
for they were his bitterest enemies ; and they thought that 
he would be embarrassed, in his fight with the Parliament 
in England, by a revolution in Ireland. And so the very 
men who were the guardians of the State lent themselves to 
promote the rebellion by every means in their power. For 
instance, six months before the revolt broke out, Charles 
gave them notice that he had received intelliojence that the 
Irish were going to rise. They took no note whatever of 
the King's advertisement. The Lords of the " Pale," who 
refused to join the Irish in their uprising, applied to the 
Lords Justices in Dublin for protection ; and it was refused 
them. They asked to be allowed to come into the city, that 
they might be safe from the incursions of the Irish. That 
permission was refused them ; and they were forced to stay 
in their castles and houses, out in the country; and the 
moment that any of the Irish in revolt came near them, 
their houses and castles were declared forfeited to the State. 
Thus the English Catholics and Lords of the " Pale,"— the 
Germanstowns, the Howths, the Trimblestons, and many 
others, — were actually forced by the Government to join 
liands with the Irish, and to draw their swords in the glo- 
rious cause that was before them. Moreover, the Irish 
knew that their friends and fellow-countrymen v/ere earning 
distinction, honor, and glory, upon all the battle-fields of 
Europe, in the service of Spain, France, and Austria; — and 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA, 85 

they hoped, not without reason, that these friends, their 
countrymen, would help them in the hour of their need. 
Accordingly, on that 23d of October^ 1641, they rose. 
What was the first thing they did? According to Mr. 
Froude, the first thing they did was to massacre all the 
Protestants they could lay their hands on. Well, thank 
God, that is not the fiict. Tlie very first thing their leader, 
Sir Phelim O'Neill, did, was to issue a proclamation on the 
very day of the rising, which he spread throughout all Ire- 
land, and in which he declared : — 

"We rise in the name of our Lord the Kinoj. We rise 
to assert the power and prerogative of the King. We de- 
clare we do not wish to make war on the King or any one of 
his subjects. We declare, moreover, that we do not intend 
to shed blood, except in legitimate warfare ; and that any 
one of our troops, any soldier, v/ho robs, plunders, or sheds 
blood, shall be severely punished." 

Did they keep this declaration of theirs ? Most inviola- 
bly. I assert in the name of history, that there was no 
massacre of the Protestants ; and I will prove it from Prot- 
estant authority. We find dispatches from the Irish Gov- 
ernment to the Government in England, dated the 25th to 
the 27th of that same month, in which they give an account 
of the rising of the Irish people. There they complained, 
telling how the Irish stripped their Protestant fellow-citizens ; 
how they took their cattle, took their houses, took all their 
property ; but not one single word or complaint about the 
shedding of one drop of blood. And if they took their cat- 
tle, houses, and property, you must remem^ber that they were 
only taking back what was their own. A very short time 
afterwards the massacre began ; but who began it ? The 
Protestant Ulster settlers fled from the Irish. They brought 
their lives with them at least ; and they entered the town of 
Carriokfergus, where they found a garrison of Scotch Puri- 



86 ENGLISH MISRULE m IRELAND. 

tans. Now, in the confusion that arose, the poor country 
people, frightened, fled into an obscure part of the country, 
near Carrickfergus, — a peninsula, called Island Magee. They 
were there collected for the purposes of safety, to the num- 
ber of more than three thousand. The very first thing that 
these English Puritans and the Scotch garrison did, when 
they came together, was to sally out of Carrickfergus, in the 
night time, and to go in among those innocent and unarmed 
people ; and they slaughtered every man, woman, and child, 
until they left three thousand dead behind them. We have 
the authority of Leland, the English Protestant historian, 
who expressly says that " this was the first massacre com- 
mitted in Ireland, on either side,^^ This was the first massa- 
cre ! How, in the name of Heaven, can any man so learned, 
and I make no doubt, so truthful as Mr. Froude, — how can 
he assert that these people began by massacring thirty-eight 
thousand of his fellow-countrymen and fellow-religionists, 
when we have, in the month of December, a few months 
after, a Commission issued by the Lords Justices in Dublin 
to the Dean of Kilmore and seven other Protestant clergy- 
men, to make diligent inquiry about the English and Scotch 
Protestants who were robbed and 2^^U7ide7^ed / but not one 
single word — not one single question — of those who were 
murdered ? 

Here are the words of Castlehaven : 

'' The Catholics were urged into rebellion ; and the Lords 
Jvistices were often heard to say that the more that were in 
rebellion the more lands would be forfeited to the Crown." 

It was the old story ; — it was the old adage of James the 
First: ^' Poot out the Catholics — root out the Irish, and 
give Ireland to English Protestants and Puritans, and you will 
regenerate the land." Oh ! from such regeneration of my 
own or any other people, good Lord deliver us, I pray ! 
'' This rebellion," says Mr. Froude, " began in massacre and 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. 87 

ended in ruin." It ended in rnin the most terrible ; but, if 
it began in massacre, Mr. Froude, you must acknowledge, 
as a historical truth, that the massacre was on the part of 
your countrymen, and your co-religionists. 

Then, the Irish having risen, the war began. It was a war 
between the Puritan Protestants of Ulster and other parts of 
Ireland, aided by constant armies that came over to them 
from England. It was a war that continued for eleven years ; 
and it was a war in which the Irish Chieftains had not the 
destinies of the nation in their own hands, but were obliged 
to fight, and fight like men, in order to try to achieve a better 
destiny and a better future for their people. (Applause.) 
Who can say that the Irish Chieftains held the destinies of 
Ireland in their own hands during these nine years, when 
they had to meet every successive army that came to them 
inflamed with religious hatred and enmity, and animated, I 
must say, by a spirit of bravery of which the world has sel- 
dom seen the like. Then, Mr. Froude adds that these were 
'' years of anarchy and mutual slaughter." Now let us con- 
sider the history of the events. 

No sooner had the English Lords of the " Pale " — who 
were all Catholics — joined the Irish, than they turned 
to the Catholic Bishops of the land. They called them 
together in a Synod; and on the 10th of May, 1642, the 
Bishops of Ireland, the Lords of Ireland, and the gentry 
and Commoners and estated gentlemen of Ireland met 
together and founded what is called the '' Confederation of 
Kilkenny." Amongst their nimiber they selected for the 
Supreme Council, three Archbishops, two Bishops, four 
Lords, and fifteen Commoners. These men were to meet 
and remain in permanent session, watching over the country, 
making laws, watching over the army ; and above all, pre- 
venting cruelty, robbery, and murder. A regular govern- 
ment wa^ formed. They actually established a mint, and 



88 ejs'glise: misrule m Ireland. 

there coined money for the Irish nation. They established 
an army under Lord Mountcashel and General Preston ; and 
in a short time after, under the glorious and immortal Owen 
Roe O'Neill. During the first months they gained some 
successes. Most of the principal cities of Ireland opened 
their gates to them. The ^'arrisons were carefully saved 
from slaughter ; and the moment they laid down their arms 
their lives were as sacred as that of any man in the ranks of 
the Irish armies. Not a drop of unnecessary blood was 
shed by the Irish with any sort of countenance on the part 
of the Government of the country — that is to say, the Su- 
preme Council at Kilkenny. I defy any man to prove that 
tliere was a single law, which that Supreme Council enacted, 
that was not enacted to prevent bloodshed or murder. 

Now, after a few months of success, the armies of the 
Confederation experienced some reverses. The Puritan 
party was recruited and fortified by English armies coming 
in ; and the command in Dublin was given to a Governor 
whose name ought to be known to every Irishman ; — his 
name was Sir Charles Coote. Some of his exploits are thus 
j)ortrayed by Clarendon, who was no friend of Ireland : — 

" Sir Charles, besides plundering and burning the town 
of Clontarf, at that time, did massacre sixteen townspeople, 
men and women, besides three suckling infants ; and in that 
very same week fifty-six men, women, and children, in the 
village of Bullock, being frightened at what Avas done at 
Clontarf, went to sea to shun the fury of a party of soldiers, 
Avho came out from Dublin under command of Col. Clifford. 
Being pursued by the soldiers in boats, they were overtaken 
and thrown overboard." 

Sir AVilliam Borlaese had, by letter, advised the Governor, 
Sir Charles Coote, to burn all the corn, and to give man, 
v/oman, and child to the sword; and Sir Arthur Loffcus 
w^rote to the same purpose and effect. An edict of the 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. 89 

Council at that time will tell you in what spirit our Protes- 
tant friends waged their war with us : — 

" It is resolved that it is fit that his Lordship," (and, 
mind, this was given to the Marquis of Ormonde,) — '' that 
his Lordship do endeavor to wound, kill, slay, and destroy, 
by all the ways and means that lie may, all the said rebels, 
their adherents and relatives ; and burn, spoil, waste, con- 
sume, destroy, and demolish, all the places, tov/ns, and 
houses where the rebels are or have been relieved or har- 
bored ; and all the hay and corn therein, and kill and de- 
stroy all the men there inhabiting capable of bearing arms. 
Given at the Castle of Dublin, on the 23d day of February, 
1641," and signed by six precious names. 

Listen to this : — 

" Sir Arthur Loftus, Governor of Naas, marched out with 
a party of horse. He v/as met on the way, and joined by 
another party sent from Dublin, by the Marquis of Or- 
monde ; and they both together killed such of the Irish as 
they met, and did not stop to inquire whether they were 
rebels or not." 

But, oh ! my friends, listen to this : — 

^' But the most considerable slaughter was in a great strait 
of furze, situated on a hill, where the people of several vil- 
lages, taking alarm, had sheltered themselves. Now, Sir 
Arthur having invested the hill, set fire to the furze on all 
sides, where the people being in considerable numbers, were 
all burned, men, women, and children. I saw," (says Castle- 
haven,) " the bodies and the furze still burning." 

"In the year 1641 or 1642, many thousands of poor in- 
nocent people of the county of Dublin, shunning the fury of 
the English soldiery, fled into the thickets, which the sol- 
diers actually fired, killing as many as attempted to escape, 
or forcing them back to be burned. And, as to the rest of 
the inhabitants, for the most part, they died of famine." 

Not only by land, where we read, sometimes^ of seven 
thoiisand of our people, men, w^omen, and children, without 
discrimination, being destroyed by these demons, — not only 



90 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

were the Irish pursued on the land, but even on tlie sea. 
We read that there was a law passed that if any Irishmen 
were found on board ship, by his Majesty's cruisers, they 
were to be destroyed. Clarendon gives this account : — 

"The Earl of Warwick, as often as he met an Irish frigate, 
or such freebooters as sailed under commission, all the sea- 
men who became prisoners who belonged to the nation of 
Ireland ; they tied them back to back, and threw them over- 
board into the sea, v^ithout distinction as to their condi- 
tion, for they were only Irish." " In this cruel manner very 
many poor men perished daily. Of all of which the King 
knew nothing, and said nothing, because his Majesty could 
not complain of it without being concerned in it, in favor 
of the rebels in Ireland." 

Again : — 

" The Marquis of Ormonde sent Captain Anthony Wil- 
loughby, with 150 men, who had formerly served in the 
fort at Gal way, from thence to Bristol, to look after and 
follow a party of men who were in the service of the King, 
and had actually fought for him. The ship in which they 
sailed was taken by Capt. Swanley, who threw seventy of 
the soldiers, who were Irish, overboard, although these 
same soldiers had faithfully served his Majesty against the 
rebels during all the time of the war." 

You will ask me, " Y/as that Captain punished for the 
murder ? " Here is the punishment he got. In June, 
1644, we read in the Journal of the English House of Com- 
mons, that Capt. Swanley was called into the House, and 
had thanks given to him for his good service, and a chain of 
gold, equal in value to £200 ; and that Captain Smith also 
had another Of £100 in value given him. 

" Sir Richard Grenville was very much esteemed by the 
Earl of Leicester, who was Lord Lieutenant for Ireland ; — 
and more still by the Parliament, for the signal acts of 
cruelty he committed on the Irish ; hanging old men who 
were bedridden, because they would not discover where 



THE CBOMWELLIAN EBA. 91 

their money was hidden ; and old women, some of them of 
quality, after he had plundered them, and found less than 
he expected." 

In a word, they committed atrocities which I am ashamed 
and afraid to mention. The -soldiers tossed the infants 
taken from their dead mothers' bosoms on their bayonets. 
Sir Charles Coote saw one of his soldiers playing with a 
child, throwing it into the air, and then spitting it upon his 
bayonet as it fell; and he laughed and said " he enjoyed such 
frolic " ! They brought children into the world before their 
time by the Csesarean operation of the sword ; and the chil- 
dren thus brought forth in misery from out the wombs of 
their dead mothers, they immolated and sacrificed in the 
most cruel and terrible manner. I am afraid, — I say, again, 
I am afraid of your blood and mine, to tell you the one- 
tenth, aye, the one-hundredth part of the cruelties that 
those terrible men put upon our people. (Hisses.) 

Now, I ask you to contrast this with the manner in which 
the Irish troops and the Irish people behaved. Lord Castle- 
haven says : 

" I took Naas, and I found in it a garrison of English 
soldiers, seven hundred strong ; and I saved the life of every 
man amongst them, and made them a present to General 
Oliver Cromwell, with the request that, in like circum- 
stances, he would do the same by me." 

But it was only a few days later the town of Galway 
capitulated. Cromwell promised quarter ; but as soon as he 
entered^ he took the governor of the town, and all the offi- 
cers of the army, and put them all to death. 

'' Sir Charles Coote, going down into Munster, slaugh- 
tered every man, woman, and child he met on his march ; 
and, among others, was a man named Philip Ryan, who was 
the principal farmer of the place, whom he put to death 
without the slightest hesitation. But some of Philip Byan's 
friends, brothers, and relatives, retaliated somewhat on the 



92 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

English ; and there was a fear that the Catholic people 
would massacre all the Protestant inhabitants of the place." 

Now, mark what follows: — 

"All the rest of the English "—(this is in Carte's " Life 
of Ormonde ") — " all the rest of the English were saved by 
the inhabitants of that place ; their houses and all their 
goods, which they confided to them, ^were safely returned. 
Doctor Samuel Pullen, the Protestant Chancellor of Cashel, 
and the Dean of Clonfert, with his wife and children, were 
preserved by Father James Saul, a Jesuit. Several other 
Pomish priests distinguished themselves on this occasion by 
their endeavors to save the English. One Father Joseph 
Everdale and Father Pedmond English, both of them Fran- 
ciscan Friars, hid some of them in their chapel, and actually 
under the very altar. The English who were thus pre- 
served were, according to their desires, safely conducted 
into the county Cork by a guard of the Irish inhabitants of 
Cashel." 

Now, my friends, the war went on, from 1641 to 1649, 
with varying success. Cardinal Pinuccini was sent over by 
the Pope to preside over the Supreme Council of the Con- 
federation of Kilkenny, and about the same time news came 
to Ireland that gladdened the nation's heart, namely, that 
the illustrious Owen Poe O'Neill had landed on the coast 
of Ulster. This man was one of the most distinguished 
officers in the Spanish service at a time when the Spanish 
infantry were acknowledged to be the finest troops in the 
world. He landed in Ireland, he organized an army, drilled 
them, and armed them, however imperfectly. But he was a 
host in himself; and, in the second year after his arrival, he 
drew up his army to meet General Monroe, and his English 
forces, at the ford of Benburb, on the Blackwater. The 
battle began in the morning, and raged throughout the early 
hours of the day; and, before the evening sun had set, 
England's main and best army was flying in confusion, and 



THE CBOMWELLIAN EBA, 93 

thousands of her best soldiers were stretched upon the field 
and choked the ford of Benburb ; while the Irish soldier 
stood triumphant upon the, field which his genius and his 
valor had won. 

Partly through the treachery of Ormonde and Preston ; 
partly and mainly through the English lords who were co- 
quetting with the English Government, the Confederation 
began to experience some of its most disastrous defeats ; and 
"Ireland's cause was already broken, and almost lost, when, 
in the year 1649, Oliver Cromwell arrived in Ireland. Mr. 
Froude says, and truly, that he ^' did not come to make war 
with rose-water," but with the thick warm blood of the Irish 
people. And Mr. Froude prefaces the introduction of Oliver 
Cromwell in Ireland by telling us that the Lord-General was 
a great friend of Ireland, that he was a liberal-minded man, 
and that he interfered with no man's liberty of conscience. 
And he adds that, — " If Cromwell's policy were carried out, 
in all probability I would not be here speaking to you of our 
difficulties with Ireland to-day." He adds, moreover, that 
" Cromwell had formed a design for the pacification of Ire- 
land, which would have made future trouble there impossi- 
ble." What was this design? Lord Macaulay tells us 
what this design was. Cromwell's avowed purpose was to 
end all difficulties in Ireland, — whether they arose from the 
land question or from the religious question, — by putting a 
total and entire end to the Irish race ; by extirpating them 
oiF the face of the earth. This was an admirable policy, my 
friends, in order to pacify Ireland and create peace : for the 
best way and the simplest way to keep any man quiet is to 
cut his throat. The dead do not speak ; the dead do not 
move ; the dead do not trouble any one. Cromwell came to 
destroy the Irish race, and the Irish Catholic faith of the 
people, and so put an end at once to all claims for land, and 
to all disturbances arising out of religious persecution. But, 



94 ENGLISH MISEULE IN IRELAND. 

I ask this learned gentleman, does he imagine that the peo- 
ple of America are either so ignorant or so wicked as to ac- 
cept the monstrous proposition that a man who came into 
Ireland with such an avowed purpose as this can be declared 
a friend of the real interests of the Irish people ? Does he 
imagine that there is no intelligence in America, that there 
is no manhood in America, that there is no love of freedom 
in America, no love of religion and of life in America ? And 
the man must be an enemy of freedom, of religion, and of 
life itself before such a man can sympathize with the blood- 
stained Oliver Cromwell. These words of the historian, I 
regret to say, sound like bitter irony and mockery in the 
ears of the people whose fathers Cromwell came to destroy. 
But he says the Lord Protector did not interfere with any 
man's conscience. The Irish demanded liberty of conscience. 
'' I interfere with no man's conscience," said Cromwell : " but 
if, by liberty of conscience, you. Catholics, mean having 
priests and the Mass, I tell you you cannot have this ; and 
you never will have it, as long as the Parliament of England 
has power to prevent it." I now ask you, my friends, what 
these words mean ? To grant the Catholics liberty of con- 
science, their conscience telling them that their first and 
greatest duty is to hear the Mass ; to grant them liberty of 
conscience, and then deny them priests to say the Mass : as- 
suredly it is a contradiction in words : it is an insult to the 
intelligence, to propound so extravagant a proposition ! 
" Oh ! but," Mr. Froude says, " you must go easy. Of 
course, I acknowledge that the Mass is a beautiful rite, an- 
cient and beautiful ; but you must remember that, in Crom- 
well's mind, the Mass meant the system that was shedding 
blood all over Europe ; the system of the Church that never 
knew mercy, that slaughtered the Protestants everywhere ; 
and therefore he was resolved to have none of it." Ah ! 
my friends, if the Mass were the symbol of slaughter, 



THE CEOMWELLIAN EBA. 95 

Oliver Cromwell would have had more sympathy with the 
Mass. 

And so the historian seeks to justify cruelty in Ireland 
against the Catholics, by alleging cruelty on the part of Cath- 
olics, against their Protestant fellow-subjects in other lands. 
Now, these words the historian has repeated, over and over 
again, in many of his writings, and at other times, and in 
other places ; and I may as well at once put an end to this. 
Mr. Froude says : '^ I hold the Catholic Church accountable 
for all the blood that the Duke of Alva shed in the Nether- 
lands ; " and I say to Mr. Froude I deny it. Alva fought 
in the Netherlands against the subjects that rebelled against 
Spain. Alva fought in the Netherlands against a people the 
first principle of whose new religion seemed to be an upris- 
ing against the authority of the State. With Alva or his 
state questions the Catholic Church had nothing to do ; and 
if Alva shed the blood of rebels, and if those who rebelled 
happened to be Protestants, that is no reason to father the 
shedding of that blood upon the Catholic Church. Mr. 
Froude says that the Catholic Church is responsible for the 
blood that was shed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's 
Day, by Mary de Medicis, in France. I deny it. The 
woman that gave that order had no sympathy with the 
Catholic Church. It was altogether a State measure. She 
saw France divided into factions ; and she endeavored, by 
court intrigue and villany of her own — for a biost villanous 
woman she was — she endeavored to stifle opposition in the 
blood of the people. Tidings were sent to Rome that the 
King's life was in danger, and that that life had been pre- 
served by Heaven ; and Home sang a Te Deum for the safety 
of the King, and not for the blood of the Huguenots. 
Amongst the Huguenots there were Catholics that were 
slain, because they were of the opposite faction; and that 



96 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IBELAITB. 

alone proves that the Catliolic Church was not answerable 
for the shedding of such blood. 

But, on the other hand, the blood that was shed in Ire- 
land was shed exclusively on account of religion, at this 
j^articular time ; for when, in 164^, Charles I. made a 
treaty for a cessation of hostilities with the Confederation 
of Kalkenny, the English Parliament, as soon as they heard 
that the King had ceased hostilities for a time with the 
Irish Catholics, at once intervened, and said the war must 
go on. They said : " We will not allow hostilities to cease ; 
we must root out these Irish Papists, or else we shall incur 
danger to the Protestant religion." I regi'et to say, my 
Protestant friends, that the men of 1643, the members of 
the Puritan Houses of Parliament in England, have fas- 
tened upon that form of religion which you profess the for- 
mal argument and reason why Irish blood should flow in 
torrents, — lest the Protestant religion might suffer! In 
these days of ours, when we are endeavoring to put away 
all sectarian bigotry, we deplore the faults committed by 
our fathers on both sides. Mr. Froude deplores the blood 
that was shed as much as I do ; but, my friends, it is a his- 
torical question, arising upon historic facts and evidence ; 
and I am bound to appeal to history as well as my learned 
antagonist, and to discriminate and put back the word 
which he j)^its out, namely, that toleration is the genius of 
Protestantism. He asserts — and it is an astounding asser- 
tion — in this, his third lecture, that religious persecution 
was hostile to the genius of Protestantism. Nay, he goes 
further. Speaking of the Mass, he says, that " the Catho- 
lic Church has learned to borrow one beautiful gem from 
the crown of her adversary. She has learned to respect the 
consciences of others." I wish that the learned gentleman's 
statements could be more approved by history. Oh ! much 
I desire that, in saying those words, he had spoken historic 



THE CROMWELLIAJSr ERA. 97 

truths ! No doubt he believes what he says ; but I ask 
him, and I ask every Protestant here, at what time, in what 
age, or in what land has Protestantism ever been in the 
ascendant without persecuting the Catholics who were 
around them? It is not in bitterness I say it, but it is 
simply as a historic truth. I cannot find any record of his- 
tory, — any time during these ages, up to a few years ago, — 
any time when the Protestants in England, in Ireland, in 
Sweden, in Germany, or anywhere else gave the slightest 
toleration, or even permission to live, where they could 
take it from their Catholic fellow-subjects. Even to-day 
where is the strongest spirit of religious persecution exhib- 
ited ? Is it not in Protestant Sweden ? Is it not in Prot- 
estant Denmark ? And who to-day are persecuting ? I 
ask you is it Catholics ? No, but Protestant Bismarck, in 
Germany. All this I say with regret. I am not only a 
Catholic, but a- priest ; not only a priest, but a monk ; 
not only a monk, but a Dominican monk ; and, from out 
the depths of my soul, I repel and repudiate the principle 
of religious persecution in any cause, or in any age, or in 
any land. 

Oliver Cromwell, the apostle of blessings to Ireland ! 
landed in 1649, and went to work. He besieged Drogheda, 
which was defended by Sir Arthur Aston and a brave gar- 
rison. He made a breach in the walls ; and when the gar- 
rison found that their position was no longer tenable, they 
asked, in the military language of the day, if they would be 
spared, — if quarter would be given them. And quarter 
was promised if all the men would cease fighting and lay 
down their arms. They did so ; and the promise was ob- 
served until the town was taken. When the town was in 
his hands, Oliver Cromwell gave orders to his army for 
the indiscriminate massacre of the garrison, and every man, 
woman, and child in that large city. The people, when 



98 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. ^ 

they saw the soldiers slain around them, — when they saw so 
many killed on every side, — when they saw the streets of 
Drogheda flowing with blood for five days, — fled to the 
number of one thousand aged men, women, and children, 
and took refuge in the great church . of St. Peter, in Drog- 
heda. Oliver Cromwell drew his soldiers around that 
church, and out of that church he never allowed one of 
those thousand innocent people to escape alive. He then 
proceeded to Wexford, where a certain commander named 
Staflbrd admitted him into the city ; and he massacred the 
people there again. Three hundred of the women of Wex- 
ford, with their little children, gathered round the great 
market-cross in the public square of the city. They 
thought in their hearts that all terrible as Cromwell was, 
he would respect the sign of man's redemption and spare 
those who were under the arms of the Cross. Oh! how 
vain the thought ! Three hundred poor defenceless women 
were there, screaming for mercy, under the Cross of Jesus 
Christ; and Cromwell and his barbarous demons around 
them, destroying them, so as not to let one of these inno- 
cents escape ; until they were ankle deep in the blood of the 
women of Wexford ! 

Cromwell retired from Ireland after having glutted him- 
self with the blood of the people. He retired from Ireland ; 
but he wound up the war by taking 80,000, — some say 
100,000, — of the men of Ireland, and driving them down to 
the southern ports of Munster, where he shipped them — 
80,000 at the lowest calculation — he shipped them to the 
sugar plantations of the Barbadoes, there to work as slaves ; 
and in six years time, such was the treatment they re- 
ceived, that, out of eighty thousand, there were only twenty 
men left. He collected six thousand Irish boys, fair and 
beautiful stripling youths ; and he put them into ships and 
sent them off also to the Barbadoes, there to languish and 



THE GROMWELLIAN ERA, 99 

die before ever they came to the fulness of their age and 
manhood. Oh! great God! is this the man that has an 
apologist in the learned, the frank, the generous and gentle- ' 
manly historian, who comes in oily words to tell the Amer- 
ican people that Cromwell was one of the bravest men that 
ever lived, and one of the best friends that Ireland ever 
had! 

Now, we must pass on. Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. 
Here is a most singular assertion of Mr. Froude, who tells 
us that, much as he regrets all the blood that was shed, and 
all the terrible vengeance that was poured out, still it result- 
ed in great good to Ireland ; and the good consisted in this : 
— The Parliament, after Cromwell's victories, found them- 
selves masters of Ireland, and the Irish people lying in 
blood and in ruin before them. What was their next move ? 
Their next move was to pass a law driving all the people of 
Ireland who owned any portion of the land, — all the Irish 
land-owners, — and all the Catholics, — out of Ulster, Mun- 
ster, and Leinster ; and, on the 1st of May, 1654, all the 
inhabitants of Ireland were driven across tlie Shannon into 
Connaught. The coarse phrase used by the Lord Protector, 
on this occasion, was that they were to "go to hell, or t(^ 
Connaught " ! The solemnity of the historic occasion which 
brings us together will not permit me to make any remark 
upon such a phrase as this. However, the Irish did not 
choose to go to hell, but they were obliged to go to Con- 
naught. (Kenewed laughter.) Lest, however, that any relief 
might come to them by sea, — lest they might ever enjoy the 
sight of the fair provinces and fair lands that were once , 
their own, — the English Parliament made a law that no I 
Irishman, banished into Connaught, was to come within four 
miles of the river Shannon, on one side, or four miles of the 
sea on the other side. There was a cordon of English 
soldiery and English forts drawn around them ; and there 



100 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

they were to live, in the bogs, in the fastnesses, and in the 
wild wastes of the most desolate country in Ireland; and 
there they were doomed to expire by cold, by famine, and 
by every form of suffering that their Heavenly Father 
might permit to fall upon them. 

Then we read that numbers of Englishmen came over ; — 
and I don't blame them ; — for the fair plains of Munster 
were there waiting for them. The splendid vales of Leinster 
were there, with their green bosoms waiting for the hand 
that would put in the ploughshare or the spade into the 
bountiful earth ; — waiti]p.g for an owner. So the English 
came from every direction to get this fair land of Ireland, — 
the fairest under heaven. Cromv/ell settled down his 
troopers there, — those rough, Puritan soldiers, who came to 
Ireland with the Bible in one hand and the sword in the 
other. They took possession of the country ; and, according 
to Mr. Froude, here is the benefit that resulted from Crom- 
well's transplantation, — that, '' in fifteen years, they changed 
Ireland into a garden " ! All the bogs were drained ! — all 
the fields were fenced in ! and all the meadows were mowed ! 
all the fallow fields were ploughed ; and the country was 
smiling in peace ! There never was anything so fine seen in 
Ireland, as the state of things brought about by Cromwell ! 
More than that ; the poor Irish peasantry, that were harass- 
ed and plundered by the priests, and bishops, and chieftains, 
now enjoyed peace and quiet and comfort as the servants of 
the new English owners and possessors of the soil ! Well ! 
I wish, for Ireland's sake, that this picture were true. I 
would have no objection to see one-half of Ireland in the 
hands, for a time, of the English settlers, if the other half 
was possessed by the Irish, and they lived there happy and 
comfortable in their homes. But these fifteen years, of 
which Mr. Froude speaks, must have begun in 1653 ; because 
it was only in September of that year that the English Par- 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA, 101 

liament declared the war over in Ireland. Up to that time 
there was war and bloodshed. JSTow there was peace ; but 
what kind of peace ? Oh, my friends, they made a solitude, 
— they made a desert ; and Mr. Froude calls it peace ! He 
calls it peace ; and it was a peaceful desert ! 

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658 : and now I want to read 
for you the state of Ireland — the '^garden" — Mr. Froude's 
" garden," — at that time : — 

'^ Ireland, in the language of Scripture, now lay void as a 
wilderness. Five-sixths of her people had perished. Men, 
women, and children were found daily perishing in the 
ditches — starved. The bodies of many wandering orphans, 
whose fathers had embarked for Spain, and whose mothers 
had died of famine, were preyed upon by the wolves." 

In the years 1652 and '53, a terrible famine had swept 
over the whole country ; so that a man might travel twenty 
or thirty miles and not see a living creature. Man, beast, 
and bird, were all dead, or had quitted those desolate places. 
The troopers would tell stories of places where they saw a 
smoke, — it was so rare to see either fire or smoke by day or 
by night. In two or three cabins where the soldiers went, 
they found none but aged men, women, and children, who, 
in the words of the Prophet^ had " become like a bottle in 
the smoke — their skins black like an oven, because of the 
terrible famine." They were seen to eat the filthy carrion 
out of the ditches, — black and rotten, — so great was their 
hunger. It was even said that they took the corpses out of 
the graves. A party of horsemen, out hunting " Tories," 
on a dark night, descried a light, and thought it was a fire 
which the Tories had made. They used to make fires in 
those waste places, to cook their food and warm themselves. 
Drawing near, they saw that it was a ruined cabin. Sur- 
rounding it on all sides, some of them alighted and peeped 
in at the window ; and there they saw a great fire of wood, 



102 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

and, sitting around it, was a company of miserable old 
women and children; and there, between them and the fire,- 
a corpse lay broiling, which, as the fire roasted it, they cut 
and ate ! 

The year before Cromwell died, in 1657, we find a mem- 
ber of the Irish Parliament, Major Morgan, declaring that 
the whole land of Ireland was in ruins. " For, besides the 
cost," he says, " of rebuilding the. churches and court- 
houses, and the market-houses, — they were under very heavy 
charges for public rewards, paid for the destruction of three 
beasts." What do you think the three *' beasts" were? 
The wolf, the priest, and the Tory! Now let me explain 
the state of this ^'garden" to you. During those fifteen 
years, of which Mr. Froude speaks so flatteringly, there was 
actually a grant of land issued, within nine miles of the 
city of Dublin, on the north side, — that is to say, on the 
most cultivated side, — to a man — with an abatement of one 
hundred pounds a year in his rent, — provided he would en- 
gage to kill the wolves. The wolves increased in Ireland 
from the desolate state of the country. They fed upon the 
carcasses of men and beasts; and they increased in Ireland, 
so that, actually, they came famished up to the very gates 
of Dublin, and had to be driven away ! Does this look like 
a "garden"? Is this the kingdom of peace, plenty, and 
happiness, where the Irish peasant was, at length, getting 
fat in colnfort ; where everything was peace and serenity ; — 
where the bogs were all drained, and the fields were so care- 
fully fenced in, by the dear Cromwellians that had got pos- 
session of the land ? When the relics of the Irish army 
were embarking for Spain, some of the Irish officers had their 
dogs, — magnificent Irish wolf-dogs, — which they wanted to 
take with them ; but they were stopped ; and the dogs were 
taken from them, for the purpose of hunting the wolves that 



THE GEOMWELLIAN EEA, 103 

infested the country. That is my first answer to Mr, 
'Froude's assertion ^that Ireland was a "garden." 

The second "beast " mentioned by Major Morgan, in the 
Irish House of Commons, was the priest. He was to be 
hunted down like the wolf. There were live pounds set 
uj)on the head of a dog-wolf, and there were live pounds set 
upon the head of a priest ; and ten pounds upon the head 
of a Bishop or a Jesuit. Mr. Froude says that these severe 
laws were not put into execution. He tells us that, while 
Parliament passed these laws, they privately instructed the 
magistrates that they were not to execute them. Not 
they ! — so merciful, so tolerant is the genius of Mr. Froude's 
Protestantism ! We have, however, the terrible fact before 
us, that Parliament after Parliament made law after law, 
commanding the magistrates, under heavy fines, — under 
heavy penalties of fine and forfeiture, — to execute these 
lavv^s. We find the country filled with informei's; we find 
priest-hunting actually reduced to a profession in Ireland ; 
and we find, strange enough, Portuguese Jews, coming all 
the way from Portugal, in order to hunt priests in Ireland, 
so profitable was the occupation. In 1698, under William 
the Third, there were in Ireland 495 regular and 872 secu- 
lar priests ; and in that very year, out of 495 friars, 424 
were shipped ofi* from Ireland into banishment, into sla- 
very ; and, of the 800 and odd secular priests that remained 
in the land, not one of them would be allowed to say Mass, 
in public or private, until he first took the Oath of Abjura- 
tion, and renounced the See of Pome ; in other words, un- 
less he became a Protestant. It is all very well for my 
learned friend to tell us that the laws were not put into exe- 
cution. But what is the meaning of such entries as these ? — 

" Five pounds on the certificate of Thomas Stanley." — 
(This was in the year 1657, the year the severe laws were 
not enforced!) — "To Thomas Gregson, Evan Powell, and 



104 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

Samuel Alley, being three soldiers in Colonel Abbott's horse 
dragoons, — for arresting a Popish priest by the name of 
Donough Hagerty, taken and now secured in the county 
jail at Clonmel; and the money" (it says) ''is to be equally 
divided between them ! " 

'' To Arthur Spollen, Robert Pierce, and John Bruen, 
five pounds, to be divided equally between them, for their 
good service performed in apprehending and bringing before 
the Right Honorable Lord Chief Justice Pepys, on the 21st 
of January, one Popish priest named Edwin Duhy." 

" To Lieutenant Edwin Wood, on the certificate of Wm. 
8t. George, Esq., Justice of the Peace of the county of 
Cavan, twenty-five pounds, for five priests and friars appre- 
hended by him, namely, Thomas McGeoghegan, Turlough 
McGowan, Hugh McGowan, Terence Fitzsimmons, and 
another, who, on examination, confessed themselves to be 
priests and friars." 

" To Sergeant Humphrey Gibbs," (a nice name,) '' and to 
Corporal Thomas Hill, of Colonel Lee's company, ten 
pounds, for apprehending two Popish priests ; namely, Mau- 
rice Prendergast and Edward Fahy, who were sentenced to 
the jail of Wexford, and, afterwards, being adjudged accord- 
ingly, were transported to foreign parts." 

The third " beast " was the " Tory," which means, that, 
in these terrible years, several of the Irish gentlemen, and 
Irish people, who were ordered to transplant themselves 
into Connaught, not finding there the means of living, re- 
mained in the desolate countries of Leinster and Munster ; 
and there, goaded to desperation, formed themselves into 
wild bands of outlaws, robbing the cattle of the Cromwellian 
settlers ; descending upon them, with fire and sword ; achiev- 
ing, in their own way, '' the wild justice of revenge." If 
Ireland was the " garden " that Mr. Froude describes it to 
be, how comes it to pass that no Cromwellian settler, 
throughout the length and breadth of the land, dared to 
take a piece of land unless there was a garrison of soldiers 
within his immediate neighborhood ? Nay, even under the 



THE CROMWELLIAN ERA, 105 

very eyes of the garrison of Tiraolin, in Meatli, the " Tories " 
came down, and robbed, plundered, set fire to, and destroyed 
the homesteads of certain English Cromwellian settlers ; for 
which all the people of the neighborhood, of Irish names 
and of Irish parentage, were at once taken and banished out of 
the country. In a word, the outlaws who, thirty years af- 
terward, appeared as " Kapparees," — who are described to 
us in such fearful terms, by the English historians, — con- 
tinned to infest and desolate the country ; and we find ac- 
counts of them in the State papers, and other papers, down 
to the latter end of the reign of George III. And this was 
the *' garden " ! This was the land of peace, of comfort, 
and of plenty ! 

Now, my friends, came the Restoration. In 1659, Charles 
II. was restored to the throne of England. Well, the Irish 
had been fighting for his father ; they had bled, and sufiered, 
fighting against h^s enemies ; and they were now banished 
into Connaught. They naturally expected that, when the 
rightful heir to the throne would come into his rights, they 
would be recalled and put into their estates. They might 
have expected more. They might have expected to be re- 
warded by honors, titles, and wealth. But what is the fact ? 
The fact is that Charles 11. , at the Restoration, left nearly 
the whole of Ireland in the hands of the Cromwellian set- 
tlers ; and, by the ^' Act of Settlement and Explanation," 
secured them in these estates, leaving the property and the 
wealth of the country to the men who had brought his 
father to the scafibld ; and leaving in beggary, destitution, 
and ruin, the brave and loyal men who had fought for him 
and his house. At first, indeed, there was a '' Court of 
Claims " opened ; for, remember, that, in England, no sooner 
had Charles come to the throne, than all the Cromwellian 
settlers who had taken the property of the English Royal- 
ists were at once put out, and the English lords and gentle- 
st 



lOG ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

men got back their properties and estates. But not so in 
Ireland. The '' Court of Claims " was opened in the first 
year of the reign of Charles. As soon as it was perceived 
that the Irish Catholics began to claim their property, the 
Government shut up the Court at once. Three thousand 
of these claims remained unheard. As Leland says : — 

" The people of Ireland were denied the justice which is 
given to the commonest criminal — the justice of having a 
fair and impartial hearing." 

Nugent^ afterwards Lord Hiverston, writes at this time : — 

" There are in Ireland to-day, five thousand men who 
never were outlawed, who yet have been put out of their 
estates ; and now by law they never can recover their es- 
tates again." 

More than this. I^o sooner was Charles seated on the 
throne, than the English and Irish Parfiaments began to 
afflict and grind the already down-trodden people of Ireland 
by legislation the most infamous that can be imagined. In 
1G73, the English Parliament furiously demanded that the 
King should expel all the Catholic Bishops and priests from 
Ireland, and prohibit the Papists from dwelling there with- 
out a license. In order to encourage the Protestant 
" planters," Charles, — against his conscience, and against 
his royal gratitude, — obeyed them. Law after law was 
passed in that and the succeeding years, abolishing and de- 
stroying, as far as they could, every vestige of the Catholic 
religion in Ireland. Mr. Froude here again makes the cus- 
tomary assertion, that, " when the Pestoration came, the 
Catholic religion and the Catholic priests came back with 
it." He tells us that the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin 
'^ was received in state at the Castle." What are the facts ? 
The Primate, Edmund O'Peilly, was banished. Peter 
Talbot, the Archbishop of Dublin, — although, being in a 



THE GROMWELLIAN ERA. 107 

dying state, he had got leave, but a short time before, to re- 
turn to Ireland, that he might die in the land of his birth, 
— was arrested in Maynooth, near Dublin, and shut up in a 
dungeon ; and there he died a miserable death of martyr- 
dom. We find, at this very time, a reward of ten pounds 
offered for any one who should discover an officer of the 
army attending at Mass ; ^yq pounds for a trooper ; and 
four shillings for any private soldier, who was discovered to 
have heard Mass. Oliver Plunkett, the holy Primate of 
Armagh, was seized by Lord Ormonde, in 1679. They 
knew that they could not convict him of any lawlessness or 
treason in Ireland ; and they brought him over to London, 
packed an English jury to try him; and they murdered 
him at Tyburn, in this year. 

It is true that these penal laws were relaxed for some years 
before the death of Charles 11. That event took place in 
1685 ; and Jam6s 11. came to the throne. Three years after- 
wards, William of Orange landed to dispute with him the title 
to the crown of England. Now, that James II. was the lawful 
King of England, no man will deny. William was married 
to Mary, the daughter of James ; and William came to 
England with an army of 15,000 men at his back, pretending 
that he came only to inquire about the birth of the Prince 
of Wales, who was the lawful heir to the crown. Well, 
James, as soon as William arrived with his army, fled to 
Prance. Mr. Froude tells us that he abdicated when he fled 
to Prtoce. I deny that James II. abdicated. Mr. Froude 
has no authority to say it. He only retired, for a time, 
from the face of his enemy. He called upon his subjects, 
both in England and Ireland, to stand to their King like 
loyal men. The EngHsh betrayed him ; the Irish, — fools as 
they were, — rose up again for a Stuart King, and declared 
they were loyal men, and they would stand by their mon- 
arch. 



108 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

James came to Ireland in 1689 ; and he sunmioned a Par- 
liament, of which Mr. Froude speaks in his lecture. He 
speaks of that Parliament as a persecuting Parliament. He 
says that " they attainted every single Protestant proprietor 
in Ireland, by name ; " and that they did this, " lest any one 
should escape out of their net." Now, what are the facts of 
that Parliament of 1689 ? The very first thing that they 
declared, although they had suffered more than any other 
people from religious persecution, — the very first law they 
made was that there should be no more religious persecution 
in Ireland, and that no man, from that day forward, should 
suffer for his conscience or his faith. It is perfectly true 
that they passed a bill of attainder ; but they passed that 
bill not against Protestants but against every man of the 
land that was in arms against King James, whom they rec- 
ognized as their king ; — every man who refused to obey him 
and his government. I ask you, in doing that, did they not 
do their duty ? Did they not do precisely what is always 
done in times of rebellion ? England was in rebellion against 
James. James was the lawful king. James was in Ireland ; 
and the Irish Parliament, witK James at their head, declared 
that every man who was in arms against him was to be out- 
lawed. Against these outlaws the Bill of Attainder was 
passed, — this ^' persecuting measure " of which Mr. Froude 
speaks when he 7nentions this Parliament. 

William came to Ireland, and opened the campaign in 
1690. Mr. Froude says, in his description of hinl, that 
William brought with him only a small army, badly 
equipped, badly drilled ; but that the Irish were never so 
strong, never so \vCA drilled, or so perfectly equipped as they 
were at the time, ^sow here are the numbers as given by 
history : — William's army consisted, at first, of 46,000 vet- 
eran soldiers, well clad, well fed, and perfectly drilled and 
equipped. The Irish army of James numbered 23,000 im- 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. 109 

perfectly disciplined troops, wanting in nearly everything 
necessary for a campaign. This we have on the evidence of 
the Duke of Berwick, who was serving in the army at the 
time. At the battle of the Boyne, Mr. Froude says that 
" the Irish did not make even a respectable stand " ! And 
I regret, — I bitterly regret, — that the learned gentleman 
should, himself, have so far forgotten what was due to him- 
self, as to have ventured, even in the faintest whisper, to 
impute a want of courage to the soldiers of Ireland. At the 
battle of the Boyne, James and his army were on the south 
bank of the river. William with his army advanced down 
from the north. The muster roll of William's army, on that 
morning, shows the figure of 51,000 men. The army of 
James had not increased from the original 23,000. William 
was a lion-hearted and brave soldier. James, I am sorry to 
say, had forgotten the tradition of that ancient courage and 
gallantry which belonged to him as Duke of York, when he 
was Lord High Admiral of England. On one side was ^'an 
army led by a lion ; " on the other was " an army led by a 
stag." The Irish have fixed upon James an opprobrious 
name, in the Irish language, which on an occasion like this 
I will not repeat. 

On the morning of the battle of the Boyne, William de- 
tached 10,000 men, who went up the stream some miles, to 
ford it near the Hill of Slane. James could scarcely be pre- 
vailed upon to send one or two regiments of horse to oppose 
these 10,000 men, with their artillery, headed by the Duke 
of Schomberg. The evening before the battle, James sent 
5\-vay six guns towards Dublin. How many do you think 
remained ? Only six pieces of artillery remained with the 
Irish on that day! How many were opposed to them? 
We have it on historic record, that William brought into 
the field on that day at the Boyne, fifty heavy pieces of ar- 
tillery and four mortars. Then he advanced and crossed 



110 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

the river. These Irish troops, of whom Mr. Froude says 
that " they did not make even a respectable stand," were 
outgeneralled that day. They had at their head a timorous 
king, — a king who had ah-eady sent away his artillery and 
his baggage ; who had drawn around his person, two miles 
away, all the best disciplined of the French soldiers ; and 
these raw levies of young Irishmen were opposed to 51,000 
of the bravest men of Europe. Well, William crossed the 
Boyne, and the Duke of Berwick is my authority for stating 
this. He says: — 

" With admirable courage and gallantry, the Irish, troops 
charged the English ten times after they had crossed the 
river." 

Ten times did these poor young fellows, with no General, 
and scarcely an officer, charge upon the English with a dash 
as brave as that with w^hich O'Brien, Lord Clare, swept 
down upon them at Fontenoy. Ten distinct times did they 
dash against the terrible lines of William's veterans. And 
when they retreated, they retreated like an army, in perfect 
order, at the command of their superior officers. 

Is'ow came the siege of Athlone. In that same year, 1690, 
the English army advanced, on the line of the Shannon, 
against Athlone. And here, Mr. Froude says, that, " At 
Athlone the Irish deserted posts which they easily might 
have made impregnable." Now, what are the facts ? The 
town of Athlone stands on the river Shannon, partly on one 
bank and partly on the other, connected by a stone bridge. 
The portion of the town that is on the Leinster side is 
called the " English town ; " that upon the Connaught side 
is called the " Irish town." When the English army ad- 
vanced against the town of Athlone, in the first siege. Col- 
onel Bichard Grace, who held the town, beat back the Eng- 
lish, — many times, — aye, eight times more than his number, 
— with so much bravery, that the whole army of England 



TEE CBOMWELLIAJSr ERA. HI 

was obliged to retire from before Athlone, and give up the 
siege. 

Then, William advanced upon Limerick. He brought 
with him the whole strength of his army. He had, when 
he went to Limerick, 26,000 men in regular line of battle. 
In the town of Limerick there was an army of James's made 
up partly of Irish, under the immortal Sarsfield, and partly 
of French, under a General named Lazun. When the great 
English army, with its King, was approaching the city, the 
French General, seeing it so defenceless, actually left the 
town with his troops, swearing that " the town could be tak- 
en with .roasted apples." Sarsfield, with the Irish, remained. 
William advanced before the town and battered it with his 
cannon, until he made a breach thirty-six feet wide ; and then 
he assaulted it with 12,000 of his picked men. They actu- 
ally entered the town, and were beaten out of the walls of 
Limerick ; — beaten back over the broken interior walls, — 
beaten so that, whilst even the women of Limerick entered 
into the contest, fighting side by side with the men, — after 
three hours and a half of fighting, William, Prince of Orange, 
withdrew from the assault, leaving 2,000 men and 155 officers 
in the breach of Limerick. The next day King William 
sent a message to the city, asking them for leave to bury his 
dead ; and the answer he got was : " Begone ! we will give 
you no leave. Take yourself away ; and we will bury your 
dead ! " 

In the second siege of Athlone, in the following year, the 
English town was occupied by Colonel Fitzgerald. General 
St. Ruth, with the Irish army, lay two miles away, on the 
other side of the Shannon. The English town was assailed 
by William's General, Ginckle, with .8,000 men against the 
400 who defended it. Fitzgerald and his Irish troops re- 
mained, and stopped the whole English army, and fought 
until, out of the 400 men, not 200 were left, before they 



112 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

crossed tlie bridge and gave up that portion of the town. 
Before they crossed the bridge they broke one of the arches ; 
and then crossing over they joined the garrison in the Irish 
town. The English army with all their artillery battered the 
Irish town until they did not leave a house standing there, 
or a stone upon a stone. Before they forced the Irish troops 
to retire, the English attempted to plank over the broken 
arch of the bridge. They had their guns ranged to sweep it. 
Eleven Irish soldiers came out to tear up the planks, and 
cast them into the river; and such was the sweeping fire of 
the English artillery, that out of the eleven, only two of the 
poor fellows survived. Again the English advanced to the 
attack ; and again eleven other Irish sergeants of the various 
regiments came out in the face of the whole English army, 
and in the face of all their artillery, and deliberately de- 
stroyed the wooden bridge they were making over the Shan- 
non. And when the town was taken, at last, it was a mere 
heap of ruins. It was taken not through any w^ant of bra- 
very on the part of the Irish soldiers, but through the folly 
and obstinacy of the French General, St. Kuth, who refused 
to succor them or stand by them. 

Of Aughrim I will not speak ; because Mr. Froude him- 
self acknowledges that, at Aughrim, the Irish soldiers fought 
bravely. And because I have for, this English gentleman, 
really and truly, a sincere regard and esteem, I would ask 
him to do what I myself would do if I were in his position : 
I would ask him to reconsider the word by which he seems 
to imply a taint of cowardice on Irishmen, at home and 
abroad, and, in the name of God, to take that word back. 

In 1691, the second siege of Limerick began ; and so gal- 
lant was the resistance, so brave the defence, that William 
of Orange, who was a brave man, — and if left to himself 
would have been a tolerant and mild man, — offered terms. 
He bore no ill-will to the Irish, because he was a stranger to 



THE CEOMWELLIAN ERA. 113 

them, and only came to Ireland simply as a warrior in the 
service of war ; he saw in the Irish a high-spirited and brave 
people ; and he was obliged to come to terms. In the arti- 
cles of capitulation signed for the Irish, they received hon- 
orable terms from the royalty of England. By those very 
articles, their rights, as citizens and as Catholics, to every 
liberty of conscience and of religion were recognized. 
Scarcely was the treaty of Limerick signed by the Lords 
Justices, than a French fleet entered the Shannon, — a French 
fleet of eighteen ships of the line, with twenty transports, 
bringing 3,000 men, 200 officers, and above all, 10,000 stand 
of arms, with clothing and provisions. They camej but 
they came too late for Sarsfield and for Ireland. Sarsfield 
had surrendered. He might have taken back that word ; he 
might have broken these articles, when he found the French 
forces and fleet at his back. But Sarsfield, to his glory, was 
an Irishman ; — and he was far too honorable a man to vio- 
late the treaty of Limerick which he had signed with his 
honorable hand. Would to God that the honor of Sarsfield 
had also been in the hearts of the other men, who, on the 
part of England, signed that treaty ! But, no ! The Lords 
Justices went back to Dublin^ ^vith the treaty signed, with 
the honor of the royalty of England committed to it ; and 
the next Sunday after they arrived in Dublin, they went 
to Christ Church Cathedral to perform their devotions; 
and the sermon was preached by a Dr. Dop])ing, the Lord 
Bishop of Meath. Now, I am more or less a professional 
preacher, — not so much a lecturer as a preacher, — and I 
iiave a certain feeling of esprit du corps — I have the feeling 
for preachers that every man has for his own profession. I 
like to see them uphold the honor of their profession. — 
What do you think was the sermon that Dr. Dopping 
preached. He preached, — I regret to say and I am ashamed 
to say (it is true he was a Protestant Bishop) — but still he 



114 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

preached on the sin and the sinfulness of keeping your oath 
or faith with a Pajnst. 

Immediately after the articles of Limerick were signed, — 
we have the testimony of Harris, the historian of William 
the Third. He says : 

"Justices of the Peace, and Sheriffs, and other Magis- 
trates, presuming on their power in the country, did, in an 
illegal manner, dispossess several of their Majesties' subjects 
not only of their very goods and chattels, but of their lands 
and tenements, to the great disturbance of the peace, the 
subversion of the law, and the reproach of their Majesties' 
Government." 

"W^e find those Lords Justices themselves, in a letter of the 
19th November, six weeks after the treaty was signed, — 
complaining that their lordships had received complaints 
from all parts of Ireland of the ill-treatment of the people 
who had submitted to their Majesties' protection, and were 
included in the articles of that treaty. And the consequence 
was thaf^ actually, the men who refused to embark with 
Sarsfield, to go to Spain and France, came in thousands to 
beg of the English Lords Justices to give them leave, to let 
them go and join Sarsfield in exile, — to let them go to fight 
the battles of France, Spain, and Austria, — because there 
was no room in Ireland for a Catholic and an Irishman, nor 
even for an honest man. 

Now began a time the most lamentable for Ireland. Wil- 
liam himself was anxious to keep his royal word, and would 
have kept it, if they had allowed him. But the same pres- 
sure was put upon him as was brought to bear on Charles I. 
The Irish Protestant faction would not allow a Catholic to 
live in the land. The English Parliament would not allow 
a Catholic to breathe in the land. William was coerced to 
comply with their requests ; and a series of the most terri- 
ble laws that can be imagined were passed in the very teeth 



THE GROMWELLIAN EBA. 115 

of the articles that were signed at Limerick. Three years 
after the siege of Limerick, the two Parliaments were urged 
by the grievances of the Protestants of Ireland. The poor 
fellows complained " that the Catholics would not give them 
leave to live " ! They poured in their petitions to the House 
of Commons. We find a petition from the Protestant Mayor 
and Aldermen of Limerick, complaining, in their own words, 
that they were " greatly damaged in their trade by the great 
number of Papists residing there ; " and praying to be re- 
lieved of them. We find the " coal-porters " of Dublin send- 
ing in a petition to Parliament, and it was as follows : — 
'^ Petition of one Edward Spragg " (another nice name) 
" and others, in behalf of themselves and other Protestant 
porters, in and about the city of Dublin," — complaining that 
one Darby Pyan, a Papist, actually employed porters of his 
own religion. And the petition was entertained by the Lish 
House of Commons, and was sent to the " Committee on 
Grievances." Listen to the words and description by the 
historian, John Mitchel, of this time : — 

" The Parliament met, and they passed an Act for the bet- 
ter securing of the Government against the Papists ; and the 
first act of that Parliament was that no Catholic in Ireland 
was to be allowed to have a gun, pistol, or sword, or any 
kind of weapon of ofience or defence. The consequence of 
disobeying this law was fine and imprisonment, at the dis- 
cretion of the court, or else the pillory or whipping." 

Now here are the reflections of Mr. Mitchel : — 

" It is impossible to describe the minute and curious tyr- 
anny to which this statute gave rise in every parish of the 
island ; especially in districts where there was an armed Yeo- 
manry, exclusively Protestant. It fared ill with any Catholic 
who, for any reason, fell under the displeasure of his formida- 
ble neighbors. Any pretext was sufficient to point him out 
for suspicion. Any neighboring magistrate might visit him, 
at any hour of the night, and search his bed for arms. No 



116 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

Papist was safe from suspicion who had any money to pay 
in fines ; and woe to the Papist who had a handsome daugh- 
ter!" 

The second act that they passed was designed to brutalize 
the Irish Catholic people, by ignorance. They made a law 
that no Catholic was to teach ; no Catholic was to send his 
son to a Catholic school, or to a Catholic teacher. No Cath- 
olic child was to be sent out of Ireland to receive a Catholic 
education elsewhere ; and if any parent or guardian were found 
sending money, clothing, or anything else to a Catholic child, 
in a Catholic school, there was forfeiture, imprisonment, or a 
fine ; and for a second oifence he was treated as guilty of high 
treason and was liable to be put to death for doing it. 

The third act they passed was : — 

" That all Popish Archbishops, Bishops, Yicars-General, 
Deans, Jesuits, Monks, Friars, and all other regular Popish 
clergy, and all Papists exercising any ecclesiastical jurisdic- 
tion, — shall depart out of this Kingdom before the 1st day 
of May, 1698." 

If any remained after that day, or returned, the delinquents 
were to be transported ; and if they returned again, they were 
to be guilty of high treason, and to suffer accordingly ; — that 
is to say — to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. 

You would imagine now, at least, that the Papists were 
down as far as they could be put down. You would imagine, 
now, at least, that the Protestant religion was safe in Ire- 
land. Ah ! no, my friends. William was succeeded by his 
sister-in-law. Queen Anne. She was a Stuart; she was a 
daughter of James II., for whom Ireland shed its blood ; she 
was a granddaughter of Charles I., for whom Ireland shed 
its blood ; and one would imagine she would have some heart, 
some feeling for that people. Here is the way she shov/ed 
it. A Parliament, under this good Queen, passed a law " to 
prevent the growth of Popery " ! What a strange plant tliis 



THE GEOMWELLIAN ERA, 117 

Popery must be ! They had been chopping it up, and cutting 
it down, trampling it under foot, blowing it up with gun- 
powder, digging it out by the roots, as if they thought that 
would extirpate it ; and yet, year after year. Parliament said : 
*' We must stop the growth of Popery," and passed laws to 
stop the growth of Popery. By the first act of this Parlia- 
ment of good Queen Anne, it was enacted that, if the son of 
any Papist should ever become Protestant, his father might 
not sell or mortgage his estate, or dispose of it, or any portion 
of it, by sale ; for the Protestant son became master of his 
father's estate. Or if any child, no matter how young, con- 
formed to the Protestant religion, he reduced his father at 
once to be a tenant for life; and the child was to be taken 
from the father, and placed under the guardianship of some 
Protestant relative. This clause of this act, according to law, 
made a Papist incapable of purchasing any landed estates, 
or collecting rents or profits arising out of the land, or hold- 
ing any lease for life, or for any term exceeding thirty-one 
years, unless in such lease the reserve rent were at least one 
third of the improved rent value. That is to say, that if 
a Protestant discovered that a Catholic had improved his 
land, so as to make it one-third more in value, the Protestant 
could seize the money, could seize the land, could get a re- 
ward for betraying his neighbor to the Government. 

Finally, they capped the climax by passing a law that no 
Papist or Catholic was to have a horse worth more than five 
pounds. If he had one worth five thousand pounds, and a 
Protestant came up to ofier him five pounds for the horse ; 
— whether he took it or not, the Protestant was at liberty to 
seize the Catholic's property. In a word, every enactment 
that could degrade, vilify, or annihilate the people, was the 
order of the day, and the business of Parliament, from the 
days of Elizabeth down to the days when America burst her 



118 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

chains, and before her terrible presence England grew afraid, 
and began to relax her penal laws. 

I feel, my friends, that I have detained you too long npon 
a subject which, indeed, was dreary and desolate ground to 
travel over. For my part, I never would have invited the 
citizens of America, or my fellow-countrymen, to enter upon 
such a desolate waste, to renew, in my heart and yours, so 
deep and terrible a sorrow, if Mr. Froude had not compelled 
me to lift the veil, and to show you the treatment which our 
fathers received at the hands of England. I do it not at all 
to excite national animosity, not at all to stir up bad blood. 
I am one of the first willing to say, '' Let by-gones be by- 
gones ; let the dead past bury its dead." But, if any man, — '• 
I care not who he be, how great his reputation, how grand 
his name, in any walk of learning, or of science, or history ; — 
if any man dare to say that England's treatment of Ireland 
was just, — was necessary, — was such as can receive the ver- 
dict of an honest man or of an honest people ; — if any man 
dare to say that, either at home or abi^oad, the Irish have 
ever shown the white feather in the hour of danger, — in were 
on my death-bed I would rise up to contradict him. 



FOUETH LECTURE. 

(JDdwered in tlie Academy of Music ^ New YorJc^ Nov, 21, 1872.) 

IRELAND AND AMERICA. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: I perceive, from the public 
papers, that Mr. Froutle seems to be somewhat irritated by- 
remarks that have been made as to his accuracy as a histo- 
rian. Lest any word of mine might hurt, in the least de- 
gree, the just susceptibilities of an honorable man, I beg, 
beforehand, to say that nothing was further from my 
thoughts than the slightest word either of personality or 
disrespect for one who has won for himself so high a name 
as the English historian. And, therefore, I sincerely hope 
that it is not any word of mine, — which may have fallen 
from me, even in the heat of our amicable controversy, — 
that can have given the least offence to that gentleman. 
Just as I would expect to receive from him, or from any 
other learned and educated man, the treatment which one 
gentleman is supposed to show to another, so do I also wish 
to give him that treatment. 

And now, my friends, we come to the matter in .hand. 
On the last occasion, I had to traverse a great portion of my 
country's history in reviewing the statements of the English 
historian ; and I was obliged to leave almost untouched one 
portion of that sad story ; namely, the period which covers 
the reign of Queen Anne. This estimable lady, of whom 
history records the unwomanly vice of an overfondness for 
eating — came to the English throne, on the demise of 



120 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IBELAND, 

William of Orange, in 1702; and on that throne she sat 
until 1714. As I before remarked, it was, perhaps, natural 
that the Irish people, — the Catholics of Ireland, — trodden 
into the very dust, — should have expected some quarter 
from the daughter of the man for whom they had shed their 
blood, and from the granddaughter of the other Stuart 
King for whom they had fought with so much bravery in 
1649. The return that the Irish people got from this good 
lady was quite of another kind from what they might have 
expected. Not content with the atrocious laws that had 
been already enacted against the Catholics of Ireland; not 
content with the flagrant breach of the Articles of Limerick, 
of which her royal brother-in-law, William, was guilty; — 
no sooner does Anne come to the throne, and send the Mar- 
quis of Ormonde, as Lord Lieutenant, to Ireland, than the 
Irish Ascendancy, — that is to say the Protestant faction in 
Ireland, — got upon their knees to the new Lord Lieutenant 
to beg of him, for the honor of the Lord, to save them from 
these desperate Catholics ! Great God ! — a people, robbed, 
persecuted, and slain, until only a miserable remnant of 
them were left ; — without a voice in the nation's councils ; 
— without a vote, even at the humblest board that sat to 
transact the meanest parochial business ; — these were the 
men against whom the strong Protestant Ascendancy of 
Ireland made their complaints, in 1703. And so well were 
these complaints heard, my friends, that we find edict after 
edict coming out, declaring that no Papist should be allowed 
to inherit or possess land, or to buy land, or have it even 
under a lease : declaring that if a Catholic child wished to 
become Protestant, that moment that child became the 
owner and the master of his father's estate ; and his father 
remained only his pensioner, or a tenant for life upon the 
bounty of his apostate son ; declaring that, if a child, no 
matter how young, — even an infant, — conformed and be- 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 121 

came Protestant, — that moment that child was to be re- 
moved from the guardianship and custody of the father, and 
was to be handed over to some Protestant relation. E very- 
enactment that the misguided ingenuity of the tyrannical 
mind of man could suggest was adopted and put in force. 
" One might be inclined," says Mr. Mitchel, " to suppose 
that Popery had been already sufficiently discouraged ; see- 
ing that the Bishops and clergy had been banished, that 
Catholics were excluded, by law, from all honorable or luc- 
rative employments ; carefully disarmed, and plundered of 
almost every acre of their ancient inheritance." But 
enough had not yet been done to make the Protestant inter- 
est feel secure ; consequently these laws were enacted, and 
new clauses were added, under this " good Queen Anne," 
declaring that no Papist or Catholic could live in a. walled 
town, especially in the towns of Limerick or Gal way ; that 
no Catholic could even come into the suburbs of thes» 
towns ; they were obliged to remain several miles outside 
the town, as if they were lepers, whose presence would con- 
taminate their sleek and pampered Protestant fellow-citizens 
of the land. 

The persecution went on. In 1711, we find them enact- 
ing new laws ; and later on, to the very last day of Queen 
Anne's reign, we find them enacting their laws, hounding on 
the magistrates and the police of the country, and the in- 
formers of the country, — oftering them bribes and premiums 
to execute these atrocious laws, and to hunt the Catholic 
people and the Catholic priesthood of Ireland as if they 
were ferocious and untamable wolves. And, my friends, 
Mr. Froude justifies all this on two grounds. Not a single 
word has he of compassion for the people who were thus 
treated. Not a single word has he of manly protest against 
the shedding of that people's blood by unjust persecutions, 
as well as their robbery by legal enactment. But, he says, 
6 



122 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

tliere were two reasons wliicli, iu liis mind, seemed to 
justify the atrocious action of the English Government. 
The first of these was, that, after all, these laws were only 
retaliation, upon the Catholics of Ireland, for the terrible 
jDersecutions that were suffered by the Huguenots, or Prot- 
estants of France. And, he says, that the Protestants of 
Ireland were only following the example of King Louis 
XIV., who revoked the ''Edict of Nantes." Let me ex- 
plain this somewhat to you. The " Edict of Nantes " was a 
law that gave religious liberty to the French Protestants as 
v/ell as the French Catholics. It v/as a law founded on 
justice. It vv^as a law founded on the sacred rights that be- 
long to man. And this law was revoked ; consequently the 
Protestants of France were laid open to persecution. But, 
there is this difference between the French Protestants and 
the Catholics of Ireland : — The French Protestants had 
never had their liberty guaranteed to them by treaty ; the 
Irish Catholics had their liberties guaranteed by the Treaty 
of Limerick, — the treaty tliey won by their own brave 
hands and swords. The '' Edict of Nantes " was revoked ; 
but that revocation was no breach of any royal word 
pledged to them. The Treaty of Limerick was broken with 
the Catholics of Ireland ; and, in the breacli of it, the King 
of England, the Parliament of England, the aristocracy of 
England, and the people of England, as well as the mis- 
erable Irish Protestant faction at home, became perjurers 
before history and the world. Here are the words of the 
celebrated Edmund Burke on this very subject of the rev- 
ocation of this edict : — 

'' This act of injustice " (says the great Irish statesman), 
" which let loose on that monarch, Louis XIY., such a tor- 
rent of invective and reproacli, and which threw such a dark 
cloud over the splendor of such an illustrious reign — falls 
far short of the case of Ireland." 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 123 

Remember^ he is an English statesman, — though of Irish 
birth, — and a Protestant who speaks : 

''The privileges which the Protestants of France enjoyed 
antecedent to this revocation, were far greater than the 
Homan Catholics of Ireland ever aspired to, under the Prot- 
estant Establishment. The number of their sufferers, if 
considered absolutely, is not half of ours ; and, if consid- 
ered relatively to the body of the community, it is perhaps 
not a twentieth part. Then the penalties and incapacities 
which grew from that revocation, are not so grievous in their 
nature, or so certain in their execution, nor so ruinous, by 
a great deal, to the people's prosperity in that State, as those 
which were establislied for a perpetual law in the unhappy 
country of Ireland." 

In fact, what did the revocation of the Edict of Nantes 
do? It condemned those who relapsed into the Protestant 
faith, after having renounced it, — it condemned them ; not, 
indeed, to the confiscation of their goods, — there was no 
confiscation, except in cases of relapsation, and in cases of 
quitting the country. There was nothing at all of that com- 
plicated machinery which we have described in referring to 
Ireland's persecutions ; there was nothing at all beggaring 
one portion of the population, and giving its spoils to the 
other part ; while, side by side with this, we find the Irish 
people ruined, beggared, persecuted, and hunted to the 
death ; and Mr. Froude, the English historian, says : " Oh, 
we were only serving you as your people, and your own 
fellow-religionists in France, were serving us ! " 

The other reason that he gives to justify these persecu- 
tions, was that " the Irish Catholics were in favor of the 
Pretender," — that is to say — of the son of James II. ;-^- 
'' and consequently were hostile to the Government." Now, 
to that statement I can give, and do give a most emphatic 
denial. The Irish Catholics had had quite enough of the 
Stuarts : they had shed quite enough of their blood for that 



124 ENGLISH MISRULE m IRELAND. 

treacherous and sliaraeless race ; tliey had no interest what- 
ever in the succession ; nor cared they one iota whether the 
Elector of Hanover, or the son of James II., succeeded to 
the throne of England. Eor well they knew, whether it was 
Hanoverian or Stuart that ruled in England, the faction at 
home in Ireland, and the prejudices of the English people, 
would make him, whoever he was, a tyrant over them and 
over their nation. 

Thus the persecution went on ; and law after law was 
passed, to make perfect the beggary and the ruin of the 
Irish people ; until at length Ireland was reduced to such 
a state of misery, that the very name of Irishman was a 
reproach ; and a small number of the glorious race had 
the miserable weakness to change their faith, and to deny 
the religion of their fathers and their ancient race. The 
name of Irishman was a reproach ! My friends. Dean 
Swift was born in Ireland : and he is looked upon as a pa- 
triotic Irishman ; yet Dean Swift said : — " I no more 
consider myself an Irishman, because I happened to be born 
in Ireland, than an Englishman, chancing to be born in Cal- 
cutta, would consider himself a Hindoo ! " Of the degrada- 
tion of the Irish, and their utter prostration, he went so far 
as to say, that he would not think of taking them into ac- 
count, on any matter of importance, " any more than he 
would of consulting the swine " ! Lord Macaulay gloats 
over the state of the Catholics in Ireland, thus ; and Mr. 
Froude views, — perhaps not without some complacency ,-^- 
their misery. Lord Macaulay calls them " Pariahs," and 
says that they had no existence, that they had no liberty 
even to breathe in the land, and that land their own ! And 
we find this very view emphasized by Lord Chancellor 
Bowes, in the middle of the century, rising in an Irish 
cotirt, laying down the law quite coolly and calmly, and say- 
ing that, — 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 125 

" The law did not presume a Papist to exist in the king- 
dom, nor could they breathe without the connivance of Gov- 
ernment ! " 

Chief Justice Robinson made a similar declaration. Here 
are the words of his Lordship, the Chief Justice : — 

"It appears" (he says) "plain, that the law does not 
suppose any such person to exist, as an Irish Roman Catho- 
lic." 

And yet, at that very time, we find Irishmen proclaiming 
their loyalty, and saying, " Look at the Catholics of Ireland, 
how loyal they are ! " Mr. Froude says that they favored 
the "Pretender" at the very time when the Government 
itself was attributing the quietude of the people in Ireland, 
not to their prostration, not to their ruin, — as was the real 
state of the case, — but to their devoted loyalty to the Crown 
of England ! AVell did that brave Irish gentleman, John 
Mitchel, reject that idea. "They were," he says, "as de- 
graded as England coidd make them ; but there was another 
degradation that could only come through themselves, that 
they were not guilty of; — and that would be the degrada- 
tion of loyalty." 

Now, my friends, we have at this very time an Irishman 
of the name of Phelim O'Neill, — one of the glorious old line 
of Tyrone, — one in whose veins flowed the blood of the 
great and the heroic " Red Hugh," who struck the Saxon 
at the '' yellow Ford," and purpled the stream of the Black- 
water vvith his blood ; one in whose veins flowed the, per- 
haps, still nobler blood of the immortal Owen Roe O'Neill, 
the glorious victor of Benburb. This Phelim O'Neill 
changed his religion and became a Protestant. But it 
seemed to him a strange and unnatural thing that a man of 
the name of O'Neill should be a Protestant ; so he changed 
his name from Phelim O'Neill, and called himself " Felix 
Neale " ! There has been a good deal said lately about the 



126 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

pronunciation of proper names, and what they rhyme with. 
This man made his name rliyme with eel^ — the slippery eel. 
Now, on this change of the gentleman's name and religion, 
an old Irish priest wrote some Latin verses, which were 
translated by Clarence Mangan. I will read them, just to 
let you see how things were in Ireland at that time : — 

' ' All things has Felix changed. He changed his name ; 
Yet, in himself, he is no more the same. 
Scorning to spend his days where he was reared, 
To drag out life among the vulgar herd. 
And trudge his way through bogs, in bracks and brogues, 
He changed his creed, and joined the Saxon rogues 
By whom his sires were robbed ; and laid aside 
The arms they bore, for centuries, with pride, — 
The ' ship,' the ' salmon,' and the famed ' Red Hand; ' 
And blushed when called O'Neill in his own land ! 
Poor, paltry skulker from thy noble race ! 
Infelix Felix ^ weep for thy disgrace ! " 

But, my friends, the English Ascendancy, — or the Protes- 
tant Ascendancy in Ireland, if you will, — seeing, now, that 
they had got every penal law that they could ask for ; 
seeing that the only thing that remained for them was to 
utterly exterminate the Irish race, — and this they had 
nearly accomplished : for they had driven them into the 
wilds and wastes of Connaught ; and they would have killed 
them all, only that the work was too much, and that there 
was a certain something in the old blood, and in the old 
race, that still terrified them when they approached them ; 
they had so far subdued the Catholics, that they thought, 
now, at last, their hands were free, and nothing remained 
for them but to make Ireland, as Mr. Froude says, " a 
garden." They were to have every indulgence and every 
privilege. Accordingly, they set to work. They had their 
own Parliament. No Catholic could come near them, or 



IRELAND AND AMEEIOA, 127 

come into their towns ; they were forbidden to present 
themselves at all. They were grea^tly surprised to find that, 
now the Catholics were crushed into the very earth, Eng- 
land beo:an to rei^ard the Cromwellians themselves with fear 
and ha^tred. What ! They, the sons of the Puritans ! They, 
the brave men that had slaughtered so many of the Irish, 
and of the Catholic religion ? Are they to be treated un- 
justly? Is their trade, or their commerce, or their Par- 
liament to be interfered with ? Ah ! now, indeed, IMr. 
Froude finds tears, and weeps them over the folly of Eng- 
land ; because England interfered with the commerce and 
with the trade of the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. 
But England did it. These Irish Protestant tradesmen Vv^ere 
first-class woollen weavers : they made splendid cloth, which 
took the very best prices in all the markets of Europe, be- 
cause the wool of the Irish sheep was so fine. The English 
Parliament made a law that the Irish traders were not to 
sell any more cloth ; they were not to go into any of the 
foreign markets to rival their English fellow-merchants. 
They were to stay at home; they had the island, and they 
might make the most of it ; but, any trade, any freedom ; 
anything that would enrich Ireland, — that the English 
Parliament denied. Mr. Froude attributes this, in his lect- 
ure, to the accident that England, at that time, happened to 
be under the dominion of a paltry, pitiful-hearted lot of 
selfish money-jobbers : "mere accident," according to him: 
but an accident which he confesses so discontented the Orange 
faction in Ireland, that many hundreds of them emigrated, 
and came over to America, to settle in the Nev/ England 
States. There, as he asserts, with some truth, they carried 
their hatred v/ith them, that was one day to break up the 
British Empire. J have another theory on this great ques- 
tion. I hold that it was no accident of the hour^ at all, that 
made England place her restrictive laws on the Irish woollen 



128 ENGLISH MISMULE IN IRELAND. 

trade. I hold that it was the settled policy of England, 
These men, who were now in the ascendancy in Ireland, im- 
agined that, because they had ruined and beggared the an- 
cient race, and the men of the ancient faith, therefore they 
were friends, and they would be regarded as friends by Eng- 
land. I hold that it was at that time, — as in a great meas- 
ure it is to-day, — the fixed policy of England to keep Ireland 
poor, to keep Ireland down, to be hostile to Ireland, no 
matter who lives in it — whether he be Catholic or Protes- 
tant, whether he be Norman, Cromwellian, or Celt. '^ Your 
ancestors," says Curran, speaking to the men of his time, a 
hundred years afterwards, — '^your ancestors thought them- 
selves the oppressors of their fellow-subjects; but they were 
only their jailors ; and the justice of Providence would have 
been frustrated if their own slavery had not been the pun- 
ishment for their- vice and their folly." That slavery came, 
and it fell on commerce. The Protestant inhabitants of Ire- 
land, the Protcstiuit traders of Ireland, the '' planters," and 
the sons of the " planters " were beggared by the hostile leg- 
islation of England, simply because they were now in Ire- 
land and had an interest in the Irish soil, and in the welfare 
of the countxy. 

The inimitable Swift, speaking on this subject, makes use 
of the following quaint fable of Ovid. He says : 

" The fable which Ovid relates of Arachne and Pallas is 
to this purpose. The goddess had heard of one Arachne, a 
young virgin, very fauious for spinning and weaving. Tliey 
both met upon a trial of skill, and Pallas, finding herself al- 
most e(iualled in her own art, stung with rage and envy, 
knocked her rival down, and turned her into a spider, en- 
joining her to weave forever out of her own bov/els and in a 
very narrow compass." " I confess," (the Dean goes on,) 
" that from a boy, I always pitied })oor Arachne, and never 
could heartily love the goddess, on account of so cruel and 
unjust a sentence, which, however, is fully executed upon 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 129 

US by England, ^yith further additions of rigor and severity ; 
for the greatest part of our bowels and vitals is extracted 
without allowing us the liberty of spinning and weaving." 

He alludes in this to a strange piece of legislation, which 
Mr. Froude acknowledges. The Irish wool was famous for 
its superior fineness, and the English were outbid for it by 
the French manufacturers. The French were willing to 
give three shillings a pound for the wool ; and the English 
passed a law that the Irish people, — the farmers, — should 
not sell their wool anywhere but in England ; so they fixed 
their own price on it ; and they took the wool, made cloth, 
and, as the Dean says, poor Ireland, — Arachne, — had to give 
her vitals without the pleasure of spinning or weaving. Then 
the Dean goes on to say : — 

" The Scripture tells us that oppression makes a wise man 
mad ; therefore the reason that some men in Ireland are not 
mad is because they are not wise men. However, it were 
to be wished that oppression would in time teach a little 
wisdom to fools." 

Well, we call Dean Swift a patriot. How little did he 
ever think, — as great a man as he was, — of that oppression, 
compared with which the restriction upon the wool trade was 
nothing, — the oppression that beggared and ruined a whole 
people ; that drove them from their land ; that drove them 
from every pleasure in life; that drove them from their 
country ; that maddened them to desperation ; and all be- 
cause they had Irish names and Irish blood, and because 
they would not give up the faith which their consciences 
told them was the true one. 

And now, my friends, Mr. Froude, in his lecture, comes 
at once to consider the consequences of that Protestant emi- 
gration from Ireland ; and he says : " The manufacturers of 
Ireland and the workmen were discontented, and they 
shipped off and came to America," And then he begins to 
6* 



130 ENGLISH MISRULE. IN IRELAND. 

enlist the sympathies of America upon the side of the Prot- 
estant men who came over from Ireland. If he stopped 
here, I would not have a word to say to the learned histo- 
rian. When an Englishman claims the sympathy of this, or 
of any other land, for men of his blood and of his religion — 
if they are deserving of that sympathy, I, an Irishman, am 
always ready, and the first, to grant it to them, with all my 
heart. And, therefore, I do not find the slightest fault with 
this learned Englishman, when he challenges the sympathy 
of America for the Orangemen of Ireland, and the Protes- 
tants who came to this country. If those men were deserv- 
ing of American sympathy, why not let them have it ? 

But, Mr. Froude went on to say, that, whilst he claimed' 
sympathy for the Protestant emigrants from Ireland, as 
stanch Pepublicans and lovers of American liberty, the 
Catholics of Ireland, on the other hand, were clamoring at 
the foot of the throne, — telling King George III. that they 
would be only too happy to go out at his command, and to 
shed American blood in his cause. Was that statement 
true or not ? My friends, the learned gentleman quoted a 
petition that was presented to Sir John Blaquiere, in 1775, 
the very year that America began to assert her indepen- 
dence. In that petition he states that Lord Fingal and sev- 
eral other Catholic noblemen of Ireland, speaking in the 
name of the Irish people, pronounced the American Revolu- 
tion an unnatural rebellion ; and expressed their desire to go 
out, and to devote themselves, for " the best of kings," to 
the suppression of American liberty. First of all, I ask, 
when, — at any time in our history, — was Lord Fingal, or 
Lord Howth, or Lord Kenmare, or any one of these '' Cath- 
olic Lords of the Pale," as they were called, — when, at any 
time in our history, has any one of them been authorized to 
speak in the name of the Irish people. (Applause.) Their 
presence in Ireland, — although they have kept the Catholic 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 131 

faith, — their presence in Ireland in every struggle, in every 
national movement, has been a cross, a hindrance, and stum- 
bling-block to the Irish nation ; and the people know it well. 
But, not doubting Mr. Fronde's word at all, and only anx- 
ious to satisfy myself by historic research, I have looked for 
this petition. I have found, indeed, a petition in '' Currie's 
Collection." I have found a petition signed by Lord Fingal 
and other Irish Catholic noblemen, addressed to his Majesty 
the King, in which they protest their loyalty in terms of the 
most slavish and servile adulation. But in that petition I 
have not been able to discover one single word about the 
American Bevolution, not a single word of address to the 
King, expressing a desire to destroy the liberties of Amer- 
ica ; not one word about America at all. I have sought, 
and my friends have sought, in the records, and in every 
document that was at our hands, for this petition of which 
Mr. Froude speaks ; and we could not find it at all. There 
must be a mistake somewhere or otlier. It is strange that a 
petition of so much importance should not be published 
amongst the documents of the time. We know that Sir 
John Blaquiere was Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland. Naturally enough, the petition would go to 
him, not to rest with him, but to be presented to the King. 
And, yet, I think I may state with certainty, that the only 
petition that was presented to the King, in 1775, v/as the 
one of which I speak, and in which there was not a single 
word about America, or about the American Be volution. 
But the learned historian's resources are far more ample 
than mine; his resources of time of preparation and of tal- 
ent; his resources in the varied sources of information 
amongst which he has lived and passed his years ; — and no 
doubt he will be able to explain this. In an}'' case, the pe- 
tition of which he spoke must have passed through Sir John 
Blaquiere's hands, for he was the Secretary of the Lord 



132 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

Lieutenant ; .then it must have passed from him to the Lord 
Lieutenant, to be ins2:)ected by him; then, from him to the 
Prime Minister of England ; and then to his Majesty, the 
King. We have an old proverb in Ireland, which indicates 
the way they manage these things at home : — '' Speak to the 
maid, to speak to the mistress, to speak to the master." 

And now I come to the question. In that glorious year 
of 1775, the Catholics of Ireland were down in the dust; 
the Catholics of Ireland had no voice ; they had not as much 
as a vote for a parish beadle, much less for a Member of 
Parliament. Does Mr. Froude mean to tell the American 
people that these unfortunate people would not have v^^el- 
comed the cry that came across the Atlantic, — the cry of a 
people v/ho rose like a giant — yet only an infant in age, — 
proclaim^ing the eternal liberty of men and of nations, — 
proclaiming that no people upon the earth should be taxed 
without representation.; and gave the first blow, right across 
the face of English tyranny, that that old tyrant had received 
for many a year ; a blow before which England reeled, and 
which brought her to her knees ? Does he mean to tell you 
or me, citizens of America, that such an event as this would 
be distasteful to the poor, oppressed Catholics of Ireland ? 
It is true that England had crushed them as far as she 
could, but she had not taken the manhood out of them. 
Now, here are the proofs of this : — 

Howe, the English General, in that very year of 1775, 
wiites to his Government, expressing his preference for Ger- 
man troops. You know England was in the habit of em- 
ploying Hessians. I do not say this with the slightest feel- 
ing of disrespect ; I have the deepest respect for the great 
German element in this country ; but in these times, certain 
it is, and it is an historic fact, that the troops of Hesse Cas- 
sel, Hesse Darmstadt, and other of the smaller German 
States, were hired out by their princes to whoever took 



IRELAND AND A^MERICA^ 133 

them, and engaged them to fight their battles. General 
Howe proceeds to compliment the old race of Ireland, by 
giving emphasis to his "great dislike for Irish Catholic 
soldiers ; as they are not at all to be depended upon." 

They sent out four thousand troops from Ireland ; but 
listen to this : — Arthur Lee, a diplomatic agent of America 
in Europe, writes home to his Government in June, 1777, 
and he says : 

" The resources of our enemy " (that is to say, of Eng- 
land) " are almost annihilated in Germany, and their last 
resort is to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. They have al- 
ready experienced their unwillingness to go, every man of a 
regiment raised there " (in Ireland) " last year, having oh- 
liged them to ship him off tied and. hound P 

When the Irish Catholic soldiers heard that they were to 
go to America to cut the throats of the American people, and 
to scalp them, they swore they never would do it ; and they 
had to take them and carry them on board the ships. But 
Arthur Lee goes on to say, '^ and most certainly they will 
desert more than any other troops whatsoever " ! 

Francis Plowden, a historian of the time, tells us, that the 
war against America was not very popular, even in England. 
^•' But, in Ireland," he says, '^ the people assumed the cause 
of America from sympathy." 

Let us leave Ireland and come to America. Let us see 
how the great men, who were building up the magnificent edi- 
fice of their country's freedom, — laying the foundation in 
their own best blood, in those days, — how they regarded the 
Irish. In 1790, the immortal George Washington received 
an address from the Catholics of America, signed by Bishop 
Carroll, of Maryland, Dominick Lynch, of New York, 
and many others. In reply to that address, the calm, mag- 
nificent man makes use of these words: — 

" I hope " (he says) " ever to see America among the fore- 



134 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

most nations in examples of justice and liberality; and I 
presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic 
part which you took in the accomplishment of their revolu- 
tion, and the establishment of their government ; or the im- 
portant assistance they received from a nation in which the 
Roman Catholic religion is professed." 

In the month of December, 1781, -the Friendly Sons of 
Saint Patrick, in Philadelphia, (of which the first as well 
as the last President was General Stephen Moylan, brother 
of the Catholic Bishop, Francis Moylan, of Cork,) made 
George Washington an adopted member of their society. 
These friendly Sons of Saint Patrick were great friends of 
the great American Father of his country. When his army 
lay a,t Yalley Forge, twenty-seven members of this society 
of the Friendly Sons subscribed between them, in July, 1780, 
one hundred and three thousand five hundred pounds, Penn- 
sylvania currency, — principally gold or silver coin, — for 
the American troops, who were in dire want of provisions. 
George Washington accepts the fellowship of their society, 
and he says : — " I accept with singular pleasure the ensign 
of so worthy a fraternity as that of the Sons of St. Patrick 
in this city — a society distinguished for the firm adherence 
of its members to the glorious cause in which we are em- 
barked." 

During that time, 'svhat greater honor could have been be- 
stowed by Washington, than that which he bestowed upon 
tlie Irish ? When Arnold betrayed the cause at West Point 
— the traitor Arnold — a name handed down to eternal exe- 
cration in the history of America, — Washington was obliged 
to choose the very best and most reliable soldiers in his army, 
and send them to West Point — to guard the place that was 
so well-nigh being betrayed by the traitor. From his whole 
army he selected the celebrated ^^ Pennsylvania Line," as 
they were called ; and those men were mainly made up of Irish- 



lEELAND AND AMERICA. 135 

men. Nay, more ; not merely of Protestant Irishmen, or 
North of Ireland men, or of those who were in that day 
called " Scotch Irish," — for that was the name which, in the 
era of the Kevolution, designated Mr. Fronde's friends, who 
emigrated from Ulster. But looking over the muster-roll of 
the " Pennsylvania Line," we find such names as Dufiey, 
Maguire, and O'Brien ; — these were the names — these and 
such as these are the names — not of '^Palatines," nor of 
Scotch " Planters," in Ireland, but they are the names of 
thorough-bred Irish Celts. (Applause.) And now I wish to 
give you a little incident in the history of that celebrated 
corps, to let you see how their hearts were in relation to 
America : — 

'' During the American Revolution," (says Mr. Carey,) " a 
band of Irishmen were embodied to avenge in the country 
of their adoption, the injuries of the country of their birth. 
They formed the major part of the celebrated Pennsylvania 
Line. They bravely fought and bled for the United 
States. Many of them sealed their attachment with their 
lives. Their adopted country was shamefully ungrateful. 
The vv^ealthy, the independent, and the luxurious, for whom 
they fought, were rioting in the superfluities of life, while 
their defenders were literally half starved and half naked. 
Their shoeless feet marked with blood their tracks upon tjie 
highway. They long bore their grievances, patiently. They 
at length murmured. They remonstrated ; they implored a 
supply of the necessaries of life, but in vain ; a deaf ear was 
turned to their complaints. They felt indignant at the cold 
neglect and ingratitude of that country, for which so many 
of their companions in arms had expired on the crimson field 
of battle. They held arms in their hands. They had 
reached the boundary line, beyond which forbearance and sub- 
mission become meanness and pusillanimity. As all appeals 
to the gratitude, justice, and generosity of their country had 
proved unavailing, they determined to try another course. 
They appealed to her fears ; and they mutinied." 

Well, as soon as the English commanders heard that the 
Irish soldiers had mutinied, what did they do ? 



136 ENGLISH MISRULE m IBELAFD. 

" The intelligence was carried to the British camp, and 
there it spread joy and gladness. Lord Howe hoped that a 
period had arrived to the rebellion, as it would have been 
termed, and that there was a glorious opportunity of crush- 
ing the half-formed embryo of the Republic. He counted 
largely on the indignation and on the resentment of the na- 
tives of the Emerald Isle ; he knew the irascibility of their 
tempers ; he calculated on the diminution of the strength of 
the rebels, and accessions to the number of the royal army. 
Messengers were dispatched to the mutineers. They had 
carte blanche. They were to allure the poor Hibernians to 
return, like Prodigal Children, from feeding upon husks, to 
the plentiful fold of their royal master. Liberality herself 
presided over Howe's offers. Abundant supplies of provi- 
sions, comfortable clothing, to their heart's desire ; all 
arrears of bounty ; and pardon for past offences were 
offered. There was, however, no hesitation among these 
poor, neglected warriors. They refused to renounce pov- 
erty, nakedness, suffering, and ingratitude. Splendid temp- 
tations were held out in vain ; there was no Judas, no Arnold 
there. They seized upon the tempters. They trampled 
upon their shining ore. They sent them to their General's 
tent. The miserable wretches paid with their forfeited lives 
for attempting to seduce a band of ragged, forlorn, and de- 
serted, but illustrious heroes. We prate " (he says) '' about 
the old Koman and Grecian patriotism. One-half of it is 
false. 'In the other half there is nothing that excels this 
noble trait, which is worthy of the pencil of a West or a 
Trumbull." 

Mark ! how it is that America regarded them — mark the 
testimony of some of America's greatest men. Mr. Froude 
seems to think that the American people look upon the 
Irish nation and the Irish people pretty much with the 
eyes with which the men of the last century would look 
upon them in Ireland, where the Irish nation meant the 
Protestant people of Ireland, and the Catholics did not ex- 
ist at all. Was this the view that America and her states- 
men took of them ? No ! Here is the testimony of George 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 137 

Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington. 
The Irish, in 1829, won Catholic Emancipation ; and before 
that time, when they were struggling for emancipation, they 
appealed for sympathy and moral support to America. And 
now this is how this great American gentleman, who had 
been one of the foremost of American advocates for the 
emancipation of the Irish Catholics, speaks of them : 

"And why is this imposing appeal made to our sympa- 
thies ? It is an appeal fi'om the Catholics of Ireland, whose 
generous sons, alike in the days of our gloom and of our 
glory, shared in our misfortunes and joyed in our successes ; 
who, with undaunted courage breasted the storms which 
once, threatening to overwhelm us, howled with fearful and 
desolating fury through this now happy land; who, with 
aspirations, deep and fervent, for our cause, whether under 
the walls of the Castle of Dublin, in the shock of our liber- 
ty's battles, or in the feeble and expiring accents of famine 
and misery, amid the horrors of the prison ship, cried from 
their hearts, ' God save America !•' Tell me not " (he goes 
on to say) — '' tell me not of the aid we received from 
another European nation, in the struggle for Independence. 
That aid was most, nay, all-essential to our ultimate suc- 
cess ; but remember the years of the conflict that had rolled 
away ; and many a hard field had been fought ere the fleets 
and the armies of France gave us their powerful assistance. 
We gladly and gratefully admit that the chivalry of France, 
led by the young, the great, the good and gallant Lafayette, 
was most early and opportunely at our side. But the 
capture of Burgoyne had ratified the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. The renowned combats of the Heights of 
Charleston and Fort Moultrie ; the disastrous and bloody 
days of Long Island, of Brandywine, and of Germantown ; 
the glories of Trenton, of Princeton, and of Monmouth, all 
had occurred ; and the rank grass had grown over the grave 
of many a poor Irishman who had died for America, ere the 
Flag of the Lilies floated in the field by the Star-spangled 

Banner Of the chiefs of tlie army and the navy of 

the Be volution, we have to thank Caledonia for the honored 
names of Mercer, McDougal, Stirling, St. Clair, and the 



138 ENGLISH MISRULE ZzY IRELAND. 

chivalric Jones ; England for a Davie. But of the opera 
tives in war — the soldiers I mean — up to the coming of the 
French, Ireland furnished in the ratio of a hundred for one 
of any foreign nation whatever." 

Then this generous Americai^ gentleman, to whom Ire- 
land appealed for sympathy — for Mr. Froude's is not the 
first appeal that has been made to the people of America ; — 
this high-minded gentleman goes on to say : 

" Then honored be the good old service of the sons of 
Erin, in the War of Independence. Let the shamrock be 
intertwined with the laurels of the Revolution ; and truth 
and justice, guiding the pen of history, inscribe on the tab- 
lets of America's remembrance — eternal gratitude to Irish- 
men ! " 

Remember that this was Washington's adopted son ; re- 
member that he tells us, that the old, gray-headed, crippled 
veterans, who had fouojht under his father's banner in that 
War of Independence, were accustomed to come to his 
house ; and there he would receive them at his door, and 
bring them in ; and he tells us most affectionately of one 
old Irishman who had fought in the wars; who, after 
drinking the health of the gentlemen who had entertained 
him, lifted up his aged eyes, and, with tears, said : '' Here's 
to the memory of General Washington, who is in heaven ! " 
He says on the same occasion : 

" Americans, recall to your minds the recollections of the 
heroic time when Irishmen were our friends, y\dien in the 
whole world we had not a friend beside. Look to the 
period that tried men's souls, and you will find that the 
sons of Erin rushed to our ranks; and amid the clash of 
steel, on many a memorable day, many a John Byrne was 
not idle." 

Remember, he does not say " many a Spraggj^'^ or 
'' many a Gibbs,'^^ or the men that came over with Crom- 



IRELAND AND AMERICA, 139 

well ; but, honest John Byrne ! Who was this honest 
John Byrne of whom he speaks ? He was an Irish soldier 
of Washington's, who was taken prisoner by the English, 
and put on board a prison-ship, in the harbor of Charleston ; 
and we have it on the authority of Mr. Custis, that he 
there was left in chains in the hold of the ship, pesti- 
lence being on board. He was more than half-starved ; he 
was scarcely able, when he was summoned on deck, to crawl 
like a poor, stricken creature to the commander's feet, to 
hear what sentence was to be pronounced upon him. And 
then the English commander offered him liberty, life, 
clothing, food, and money, if he would give up the cause in 
which he was taken prisoner, and join the ranks of the 
British army. In a voice scarcely able to speak, with a 
hand scarcely able to lift itself, the Irishman looked to 
Heaven, and, throwing up his hands, cried out, '' Ilurrah 
for America ! " 

In the face of such facts, in the face of such testimony, in 
the presence of the honored name and record of George 
Washington, testifying to what Irish Catholic men have 
done for America, Mr. Froude speaks as vainly as if he 
were addressing the hurricane that sweeps over his head, 
when he tries to impress the American mind and the Amer- 
ican people with any prejudice against the Catholics of Ire- 
land. 

What does MacNevin tell us? In the year 1807, when 
America was preparing for her second war with England, 
MacNevin records, that, " One of the offences charged upon 
the Irish — and one among the many pretexts for refusing 
redress to the Catholics of Ireland, was that sixteen thou- 
sand of them fought on the side of America." But he adds 
that, "many more thousands are ready to maintain the 
Declaration of Independence ; and that will be their second 
offence." 



140 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IBELAND. 

NoWj my friends, there are other testimonies as well as 
these of the men of the time. We have the testimony of 
American literary gentlemen, such, for instance, as that of 
Mr. James K. Paulding. Here are the words of this dis- 
tinguished gentleman : — 

'' The history of Ireland's unhappy connection wdth Eng- 
land exhibits, from first to last, a detail of the most perse- 
vering, galling, grinding, insulting, and systematic oppression 
to be found anywhere, except among the , helots of Sparta. 
There is not a national feeling that has not been insulted 
and trodden under foot ; a national right that has not been 
withheld, until fear forced it from the gi-asp of England ; or 
a dear or ancient prejudice that has not been violated in 
that abused country. As Christians, the people of Ireland 
have been denied, under penalties and disqualifications, the 
exercise of the rites of the Catholic religion, venerable for 
its antiquity, admirable for its unity, and consecrated by 
the belief of some of the best men that ever breathed. As 
men they have been deprived of the common rights of 
British subjects, under the pretext that they were incapable 
of enjoying them, which pretext they had no other founda- 
tion for than resistance of oppression, only the more severe 
by being sanctioned by the laws. England first denied them 
the means of improvement, and then insulted them with the 
imputation of barbarism." 

Dr. Johnson had anticipated Mr. Paulding when he said : — 
" There is no instance, even in the Ten Persecutions, of 
such severity as that which has been exercised over the 
Catholics of Ireland." 

Thus thought and thus spoke the men whose names are 
bright in the records of literary America, and of the world. 
Take again the address agreed to by the members of the- 
Legislature of Maryland. Speaking of Ireland, these Amer- 
ican Senators and Legislators say : — 

" A dependency of Great Britain, Ireland has long lan- 
guished under oppression reprobated by humanity, and dis- 
countenanced by just policy. It would argue penury of 



IRELAND AND AMERICA, 141 

liunian feelings, and ignorance of human riglits, to submit 
patiently to those oppressions. The lapse of centuries has 
witnessed the struggles of Ireland but with only partial suc- 
cess. Rebellions and insurrections have continued with but 
short intervals of tranquillity. Many of the Irish, like the 
French, are the hereditary foes of- Great Britain. America 
has opened her arms to the oppressed of all nations. No 
people have availed themselves of the asylum with more 
alacrity or in greater numbers than the Irish. High is the 
meed of praise, rich is the reward which Irishmen have 
merited from the gratitude of America. As heroes and 
statesmen they honor their adopted country." 

Brave America ! When such glorious words as these are 
wiped out of the records of American history ; when the 
generous sentiments which inspired them liave ceased to be 
a portion of the American nature ; — then, and not before 
then, will Mr. Froude get the verdict w^hich he asks from 
America to-day. 

I have looked through the '' American Archives " and I 
have found that the foundation of this sympathy lies in the 
simple fact that the Catholics of Ireland were heart and soul 
with you — with you, American gentlemen — with you and 
your fathers in their glorious struggle. I find in the third 
volume of the "American Archives " a letter from Ireland, 
dated September 1st, 1775, to a friend in New York, in 
which the writer says : — 

" Most of the people here wish well to the cause in which 
you are engaged, and would rejoice to find you continue 
firm and steadfast. . . . They" (the Government) " are 
raising recruits throughout the kingdom. The men are told 
they are only going to Edinburgh to learn military disci- 
pline, and are then to return." 

Before they got a single Irishman to enlist they had to 
tell him a lie, well knowing that, if they told him that they 
were going to arm him and send him to America to fight 



142 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IBELAND. 

against the American people, he would never think of enter- 
ing the ranks of the British Army. A certain Major 
Roache went down to Cork to recruit men for America, and 
he made a great speech to them. I read his speech ; it was 
very laughable. He called upon them as Irishmen, by all 
that they held sacred, and the glorious nationality to which 
they belonged, the splendid monarch that governed them, — 
and in fact the very words almost which Mr. Froude alleges 
to have been used by Lord Fingal, were used by Major 
Eoache to these poor men. And then he held up the golden 
guineas and pound notes before them : and here is the re- 
sult, as given in the third volume of the " American Ar- 
chives : " 

" An account of the success of Major Koache in raising 
recruits to fight against the Americans. The service is so 
distasteful to the people of Ireland in general, that few of 
the recruiting officers can prevail upon the men to enlist 
and fight against their American brethren." 

The same year, in the British House of Commons, Gov- 
ernor Johnstone said : — 

" I maintain that some of the best and the wisest men in 
this country are on the side of the Americans; and that, in 
Ireland, three to one are on the side of the Americans." 

In the House of Lords, in the same year of '75, the Duke 
of Ptichmond makes this statement : — 

'' Attempts have been made to enlist the Irish Roman 
Catholics, but the Ministry know well that these attempts 
have proved unsuccessful." 

We find again the Congress of America addressing the 
people of Ireland, in that memorable year of 1775; and 
here are the words that America's first Congress sends over 
the Atlantic waves to the aftlicted, down-trodden, Catholic 
Irish : — 



IRELANB AND AMERICA, 143 

^^ Accept our most grateful acknowledgments for the 
friendly disposition you have always show^n tov/ards us. 
Y7e know that you are not without your grievances; we 
sympathize with you in your distress, and are pleased to 
find that the design of subjugating us has persuaded the ad- 
ministration to dispense to Ireland some vagrant rays of 
ministerial sunshine. Even the tender mercies of govern- 
ment have long been cruel towards you. In the rich past- 
ures of Ireland many hungry parasites have fed and grown 
strong laboring in her destruction." 

We find such v/ords as these addressed not to the ^^ Pala- 
tines " and " Planters ; " for if the Congress of America was 
addressing the Planters and Cromwellians in Ireland, they 
would not have had the bad taste to use such language as 
this : ^' In the rich pastures of Ireland many hungry para- 
sites have fed and have grown strong laboring in her de- 
struction." 

Benjamin Franklin, of glorious and immortal name, was 
in Versailles, as Minister from the American Government ; 
and he writes to the people of Ireland, in October^ 1778. 
Here are his words : — 

" The misery and distress which your ill-fated country has 
been so frequently exposed to, and has so often experienced 
by such a combination of rapine, treachery, and violence as 
w^ould have disgraced the name of government in the most 
arbitrary country in the world, have most sincerely affected 
your friends in America, and have engaged the most serious 
attention of Congress." 

Now I come to another honored name ; and I find the 
testimony of Gulian C. Yerplanck. When the Catholic 
Emancipation Act was passed, there was a banquet in the 
city of New York to celebrate the event; and this distin- 
guished American gentleman proposed a health, or a toast, 
and it was a Catholic toast — '' The memory of the Penal 
Laws — rcqvAescaiit in pace. May they rest in peace." " And 



144 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

now that they are gone," continues Mr. Yerplanck, " I have 
a good word to say for them." What was that good word ? 
Here it is : — 

*' Both in the glorious struggle for independence, and in 
our more recent contest for national rights, those laws gave 
to the American flag the support of hundreds of thousands 
of brave hearts and strong arms ; and have they not, too, con- 
tributed at the same time an equal proportion of intellectual 
and moral power ? " 

Coming down to our time, passing over the testimony of 
Henry Clay and his sympathies with the Irish nation (which 
he speaks of as so " identified with our own as to be almost 
part and parcel of ours — bone of our bone and flesh of our 
flesh ") — passing over this magnificent testimony, America, 
even at this hour, is mourning over the grave of a great man. 
But a few days ago a nation accompanied to his last resting- 
place William H. Seward. And this illustrious statesman 
said in 1847 : — 

'' Ireland not only sympathized profoundly with the trans- 
Atlantic colonies in their complaints of usurpation, but with 
inherent benevolence and ardor she yielded at once to the 
sway of the great American idea of universal emancipation. 
The bitter memory of a stream of ages lifted up her thoughts ; 
and she was ready to follow to the war, for the rights of hu- 
man nature, the propitious God that seemed to lead the way." 

Finally, one extract and I have done with this portion of 
my lecture. I find that such were the relations between 
Ireland and America in this struggle, that a certain Captain 
Weeks, of the ship Reiyrisal^ in the summer of 1776, cap- 
tured three prizes near the West Indies, which were English 
property. He detailed some of his own men on board of 
them, and sent them to the nearest port to be adjudged as 
prizes. Shortly after, he came across another vessel, a]id he 
let her go, finding she was Irish property. 



lUELANB AND AMERICA. 145 

The Marquis de Chasteloux, a distinguislied Frencliman, 
who was in America in 1782, j)ublished an account of his 
travels in America. An English gentleman in his transla- 
tion of this work, in a note to a friendly allusion to an Irish 
soldier of the Revolution, writes thus : — 

'' An Irishman, the instant he sets foot on American 
ground, becomes, ij^so facto, an American. This was uni- 
formly the case during the whole of the late war. Whilst 
Englishmen and Scotsmen were regarded with jealousy and 
distrust, even with the best recommendation of zeal and 
attachment to the cause, a native of Ireland stood in need 
of no other certificate than his dialect. "^"^ 

Which shows that the Irishman that our friend is speak- 
ing of was not a Palatine nor a Planter, but a genuine 
Paddy, and no mistake. 

^' His sincerity was never called in question ; he was sup- 
posed to have a sympathy of suffering : and every voice 
decided, as it were, intuitively in his favor. Indeed," (he 
adds,) "their conduct in the late revolution amply j ustified 
this favorable opinion ; for whilst the Irish emigrant was 
fighting the battles of America, by sea and land, the Irish 
merchants, particularly at Charleston, Baltimore, and 
Philadelphia, labored with indefatigable zeal, and at all 
hazards, to promote the spirit of enterprise, and increase 
the wealth and maintain the credit of the country. Their 
purses were always opened, and their persons devoted to the 
common cause. On more than one imminent occasion Con- 
gress owed their existence, and America possibly her preser- 
vation, to the fidelity and firmness of the Irish. I had the 
honor " (he says) " of dining with an Irish Society, com- 
posed of the steadiest Whigs on the Continent, at the City 
Tavern, in Philadelphia, on St. Patrick's Day." 

Mr. Froude must not run away with the assertion that the 
Irish merchants of Charleston, and Baltimore, and Phila- 
delphia were the Puritan settlers. If they had been, they 
would have gone home and eaten a cold dinner on St. Pat- 
rick's Day. 

7 



14:6 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

So much for America, and Ireland's relations with her. 

When the four thousand men were asked for by the Eng- 
lish Government, to go out and fight Americans, they 
offered to send to Ireland four thousand Protestant Ples- 
sians ; and the Irish Parliament of that day must have had 
a ray of grace, for they refused the Hessians. They said 
" No ! If the country is in danger, we can arm some of 
our Protestant people, and they can keep the peace." Out 
of this sprang the " Volunteers of '82." Mr. Froude has 
little or nothing to say of them ; consequently, as I am an- 
swering, or trying to answer him, I must restrict myself 
also in their regard. All I can say is this : Ireland, in 1776, 
began to arm. At first the movement was altogether a 
Protestant one, and confined to the North. The Catholics 
of Ireland, ground, as they were, into the very dust, — no 
sooner did the Catholics of Ireland hear that their Protes- 
tant oppressors were anxious to do something for the old 
land, than th&j came and said to them : " We will forgive 
everything that ever you did to us ; we will leave you the 
land ; we will leave you our country ; we will leave you the 
wealth and the commerce ; all we ask of you is to put a gun 
into our hands, for one hour, for Ireland." At first they 
were refused, and, my friends, when they found they would 
not be allowed to enter the ranks of the " Volunteers," they 
had the generosity, out of their poverty, to collect money 
and to hand it over to clothe the army of their Protestant 
fellow-citizens. Anything for Ireland ! Anything for the 
man that would lift his hand for Ireland, no matter what 
his religion was ! The old generous spirit was there ; the 
love that never could be extinguished was there, self-sacri- 
ficing as of old ; aye, the humble love for any man, no mat- 
ter v/ho he was, that was a friend of their native land — was 
there, in such generous acts as this of the blood of the 
O'Conors, the O'Briens, the O'Neills, and the O'Donnells. 



IBELANB AND AMERICA, 147 

But, after a time, our Protestant friends in the ^^ Volun- 
teers " began to think that these Catholics, after all, were 
fine, strapping fellows. Somehow, centuries of persecution 
could not knock the manhood out of them. " They be strong 
men," says an old writer, '' and can bear more of hard liv- 
ing, hunger, and thirst than any other people that we know 
of." God knows, our capability of enduring nakedness, hun- 
ger, and thirst, and every other form of misery, was well 
tested ! 

Accordingly, we find that, 1780, there were fifty thousand 
Catholics amongst the Volunteers — every man of them with 
arms in his hands. Mr. Froude says that Grattan — the im- 
mortal Grattan — whilst he wished well for Ireland — whilst 
he was irreproachable in every way, public or private, — that 
at this time he was guilty of a great mistake. For, says the 
historian, '' England had long ruled Ireland badly ; but she 
had been taught a lesson by America, and she was now anx- 
ious to govern Ireland properly and well; and no sooner 
was an abuse pointed out than it was immediately remedied; 
and no sooner was a just law demanded than it was immedi- 
ately granted ; and the mistake Grattan made was that, in- 
stead of insisting on just legislation from England, he stood 
up and insisted on the legislative independence of the Irish 
nation, and that the Irish should have the making of their 
own laws. Thus," according to Mr. Froude, " the energies 
of the nation, which were wasted in political contention, 
could have been husbanded to influence England to grant 
just and fair laws." But he goes on the assumption, my 
dear American friends, and others, — the gentleman assumes 
to say that England was willing to redress grievances, to re- 
peal the bad laws and make good ones ; and he proves this 
assertion by saying that " she struck ofi* the wrists of the 
Irish merchants the chains of their commercial slavery," 
and that she '' restored to Ireland her trade." You remem- 



148 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

ber that this trade was taken away from them : the woollen 
trade, like nearly every other form of trade, was discounte- 
nanced or ruined. 

Now, I wish, for the sake of the honor of England, that 
she was as generous, or even as just, as Mr. Froude repre- 
sents her, and, no doubt, would wish her to be. But we 
have the fact before us, that, in 1779, when a movement was 
made to repeal the law restricting the commerce of Ireland, 
the English Parliament, the English King, the Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland and the English Government opposed it to 
the very death. They would not have it : not one fetter 
would they strike off from the chain that encumbered even 
the Protestant ''planters" of Ireland. And it was only 
when Grattan rose up in the Irish Parliament, and insisted 
that Ireland should get back her trade — it was only then, 
that England consented to listen — because there were fifty 
thousand ''Volunteers" armed outside. 

The state of Ireland at this time is thus described : — 

'' Such is the Constitution that three millions of good, 
faithful subjects, in their native land, are excluded from 
every trust, power, and emolument in the State, civil and 
military ; excluded from all corporate rights and immunities ; 
expelled from grand juries, and restrained in petit juries; ex- 
cluded in every direction from every trust, from every in- 
corporated society, and from every establishment, occasional 
or fixed, that was instituted for public defence ; from the 
bank, from the bench, from the exchange, from the univer- 
sity, from the college of physicians, and from what are they 
not excluded?" (demands the writer.) "There is no in- 
stitution which the wit of man has invented, or the progress 
of society has produced, which private charity or public mu- 
nificence has founded for the advancement of education 
around us, for the permanent relief of age, infirmity, and 
misfortune, the superintendence of which, in all cases where 
common charity would be promoted, from the enjoyment of 
which the Legislature has not excluded, and does exclude 
the Catholics of Ireland." 



lEELAND AND AMERICA, 149 

Grattan rose up in the Senate, and, lifting up his heroic 
hand and voice to Heaven, he swore before the God of Justice 
that that should come to an end. (Cheers.) The English 
Government met him with a determination as great as that 
of the Irish patriot, and swore equally that that should re- 
main the law. Was it not time to assert for Ireland her 
independence? Mr. Froude claims that England willingly 
consented to give up the restrictions on Irish commerce. 
When Grattan proposed it in the House, an official of the 
Government, named Hussey Burgh, rose up, to the astonish- 
ment of the Government, and seconded Grattan's resolution, 
to the rage and consternation of the Government faction, 
and the unequivocal dissatisfaction of the Executive and the 
Ministerial bench. '^ Hussey Burgh, the Prime Sergeant, 
was one of the most eloquent and fascinating men of the 
day ; he was an official of the Government, and its stanch 
supporter, — one to whom, from the spirit of his office, pa- 
triotism should have been impossible." He moved '' that 
we beg to represent to his Majesty that it is not by any 
temporary expedients, but by free trade alone, that this na- 
tion is now to be saved from impending ruin." 

While they were fighting the Government from within, 
Grattan took good care to have the Volunteers drawn out 
in the streets of Dublin — there they were in their thousands, 
— armed men, drilled men ; and they had their cannon with 
them, and about the mouths of the guns they had tied a la- 
bel or card, inscribed with these words : '' Free Trade for 
Ireland, or else — " So it happened that Lord North was 
obliged, greatly against his will, to introduce measures to 
restore to Ireland her trade. Now, I ask, was not Henry 
Grattan justified, seeing that it was only by pointing the 
cannon's mouth at *Hhe best of Governments" they threw 
off the restraints on Irish trade; — was he not justified when 
he said, '' The English Parliament will never do us justice; 



150 EI^GLISH MISRULE m IRELAND, 

and, in the name of God, now that we have our men armed 
around us, let us demand for Ireland perfect independence 
' of the people and the ParKament of England, and the right 
to make whatever laws are most conducive to the welfare 
of our own people." 

It is perfectly true that Grattan failed ; it is perfectly true 
that although that declaration of independence Avas pro- 
claimed by law, and, as Mr. Froude observes, *' Home Rule 
was tried in Ireland from '82 to '99, and it was a failure." 
All this is true ; but why was it so, my friends ? Keflect 
upon this ; the Irish Parliament did not represent the na- 
tion. The Irish Parliament consisted of three hundred mem- 
bers; and of these three hundred there were only seventy- 
two that were elected by the people. All the others were 
'' nomination boroughs," as they were called. Certain great 
lords, peers, and noblemen had three or four little towns on 
their estates, which towns returned a member of Parliament ; 
and the poor people who had the votes were completely at 
the mercy of the landlord, — the rack-renting landlord, — and 
whomsoever he nominated was elected as member. Just as, 
in the Protestant Church, whenever a bishop dies, the Queen 
writes to the clergy and says : '' You will name such a one 
for bishop ; " and, then, they elect him, after the Queen has 
nominated him. 

Even of the seventy-two, who were, in some sense, repre- 
sentatives of the people, whom did they represent ? There 
were nearly three millions of Catholics in Ireland, men of 
intellect and of education, in spite of all the laws that were 
made against schools and colleges for Catholics ; there were 
nearly three millions of Irish Catholics in the land, and not 
a man of them had a vote even for a Member of Parlia- 
ment. And, therefore, this wretched Parliament, that only 
represented one-tenth of the nation, if it was venal and 
corrupt, it is no disgrace to the Irish people, and it is no 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 151 

argument to prove that they did not know how to govern 
themselves. 

Meantime, the '' Volunteers " made the most tremendous 
mistake, and that was by letting Catholics in amongst their 
ranks. This is what my Lord Sheffield says ; — and it will - 
give you clearly to understand, ladies and gentlemen of 
America, how the English people looked upon us Irish one 
hundred years ago ; indeed, according to Cobbett, one of 
their most distinguished writers, this was how they looked 
upon you, until you taught them with the sword to look 
upon you with more respect : *' It is now necessary," says 
Lord Sheffield, ^'to go back to the year 1778, to take notice 
of a phenomenon which began to appear at that time ; it is 
a wonderful thing." What was it ? 

'^ The like has never been seen in any country, at least 
where there was an established government. To describe 
it : it is an army unauthorized by the law, and unnatural ; 
and generally known by the name of the Volunteers of 
Ireland. The arms issued from the public stores were in- 
sufficient to supply the rapid increase of the Volunteers ; 
the rest were procured by themselves, and the necessary 
accoutrements, with a considerable number of field-pieces. 
The Opposition in England speak highly of them ; and the 
supporters of the Government in both countries mention 
them with civility." 

It is not easy to be uncivil to an army of 95,000 men. 

"The wonderful effi^rts of England in America were, 
somehow or other, wasted to no purpose." 

The wonderful efforts of England in America were wasted 
to no purpose ! There happened to be a man in the way, 
and that man was George AVashington. 

He goes on to speak of the Volunteers. The "many- 
headed monster," as he calls it, " now began to think it 



152 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

would be proper to reform the State and to purge the Par- 
liament of Ireland." Henry Grattan said, 

''I will never claim freedom for 600,000 of my country- 
men while I leave 2,000,000 or more of them in chains. 
Give the Catholics of Ireland their civil rights and their 
franchise ; give them the power to return members to the 
Irish Parliament, and let the nation be represented ; put 
an end to the rotten nomination boroughs : let the members 
represent the people truly, and you will have reformed your 
Parliament, and you will have established forever the liber- 
ties which the Volunteers have won." 

This was what the Volunteers wanted ; and for this they 
got J from my Lord Sheffield, the very genteel name of " the 
many-headed monster." But they did something still more 
strange than this. '' So far," he says, " everything went on 
as might have been expected. Bvit there is another part of 
their conduct neither natural nor rational. Some of the 
corps, for the purpose of increasing their numbers, perhaps, 
or possibly without consideration, admitted Roman Catho- 
lics." [They must have been mad. They did it " without 
consideration."] " And others, perhaps, enrolled them 
latterly for the sake of acquiring numbers and strength to 
force a reform of the government from England" — [to force 
a reform, which England would never permit; because she 
wanted to have a rotten Parliament to her hand, and 
throvigh that Parliament to destroy the country] : — 

''Well, bat that Protestants should allow and encourage 
this also, and form a whole corps of Poman Cathohcs, when 
all Europe was at peace, is scarcely to be believed, — above 
all, in view of their number. It has become the system of 
the Poman Catholics to enroll as many as possible, particu- 
larly since the peace of last summer ; and there is nothing 
unequivocal in this. Ah'eady, perhaps, five thousand of 
these are in arms, and in a year or less, they may be ten 
thousand. All the Protestants are gradually quitting the 
service ; and the only Protestants are those who continue 



IRELAND AND AMEBIC A. 153 

since the peace, in order to prevent the Volunteer arms 
* from falling into more dangerous hands, and to counter- 
balance the Catholics." 

Then he goes on to say : 

" They ar€ many. If they were only one-fifth, instead 
of four-fifths, of the people, the writer of this observation 
would be the last man to suggest a difiiculty about their 
being admitted into power or every right or advantage given 
to them. But they do not forget the situation in which 
their ancestors have been. They are not blind to what they 
might acquire. Persevering for upwards of two centuries 
under every discouragement, under every severity, subjected 
to every disadvantage, does not prove an indifference to the 
principles of their religion. Thinking as they do, feeling as 
they do, believing as they do, they would not be men if 
they did not wish for a change. Nor would Protestants be 
worthy of the designation of reasonable creatures if they 
did not take precautions to prevent it." 

Thus, it is to this fact, that the English Government 
steadily opposed Keform, — that they would not hear of 
Reform, because they wanted to have a venal, corrupt, 
miserable seventy-two in their hands, — it is to this fact, 
and not to any mistake of Grattan, that we owe the collapse 
of that magnificent revolutionary movement of the " Irish 
Volunteers." 

Well, England now adopted another policy. We have 
evidence of it. As soon as William Pitt came into office 
as Premier, his first thought was — " I will put an end to 
this Irish difficulty. I will have no more laws made in 
Ireland, for Irishmen. I will unite the two Parliaments 
into one, and I will not leave Ireland a single shadow of 
Legislative Independence." This being the programme, how 
was it to be worked out? Mr. Eroude says, or seems to 
say, that '' the Kebellion of '98 was one of those outbursts 
of Irish ungovernable passion and of Irish inconstancy, 
7* 



154 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

accompanied by cowardice and by treachery, with which " 
(according to him) " we are all so familiar in the history of 
Ireland." Now, I have a difterent account of '98. Mr. 
Fronde says that " the Rebellion arose out of the disturb- 
ance of men's minds created by the French Revolution ; " 
and, indeed, there is a great deal of truth in this.. The 
French Revolution set all the world in a blaze, and the 
flame spread, no doubt, to Ireland. 

Mr. Froude goes on to say that " the Irish Government 
were so hampered by this free Parliament, this Parliament 
of Grattan's, that although they saw the danger approach- 
ing, they could not avert it ; — their hands were bound ; 
nay, more," he adds, " the Government, bound by constitu- 
tional law, and by Parliament, could not touch one of the 
United Irishmen until they had first committed themselves 
by some overt act of treason ; — in other words, imtil they 
had first risen." 

Now, according to this historian, there was nothing done 
to molest, slay, or persecute the people of Ireland until 
they rose in arms in '98. My friends, the rising of 1798 
took place on the 23d of May. On that day the " United 
Irishmen" rose. I ask you now to consider whether the 
Government had any share in that rising, or in creating 
that rebellion ? 

As early as 1797, the country was beginning to be dis- 
turbed, according to Mr. Froude ; and, during the first 
three months of January, February, and March, in '98, we 
find Lord Moira giving his testimony as to the action of the 
English Government. 

" My Lords," (he says in the House of Lords,) " I have 
seen in Ireland the most absurd, as well as the most disgust- 
ing tyranny, that any nation ever gi'oaned under. I have 
been myself a witness of ifc in many instances ; I have seen 
it practised unchecked, and the effects that have resulted 



IRELAND AND AMERICA. 155 

from it have been sucli as I have stated to your lordships. 
I have seen in that country a marked distinction between 
the English and the Irish. I have seen troops that have 
been sent there full of this prejudice — that every inhabitant 
of that kingdom is a rebel to the British Goverimient." 

Troops were sent there before the Hebellion, and told — 
" every man you meet is a rebel." — " I have seen most , 
wanton insults practised upon men of all ranks and con- 
ditions." 

They sent their thousands into Ireland in preparation for 
the Rebellion ; they had, betv/een Welsh and Scotch and 
Hessian regiments, and between English and Irish militia, 
an army of one hundred and thirty thousand men prepared 
for the work ; and, in this way, they goaded the people on 
to rebellion. The rack, indeed, was not at hand, but the 
punishment of " picketing " was in practice, which had been 
for some years abolished as too inhuman even for the treat- 
ment of savages. 

Lord Moira goes on to say that he had known of a man 
who, in order to extort confession of a crime from him, was 
*' picketed " until he actually fainted ; — [ " j^icketing " 
meant putting them on the point of a stake upon one foot,] 
— " and picketed a second time until he fainted again ; and, 
again, as soon as he came to himself, picketed the third 
time until he fainted once more ; and all this on mere sus- 
picion." 

Not only was this punishment used, but every species of 
torture. Men were taken and hung up until they were half 
dead, and then threatened with a repetition of the cruel tort- 
ure unless they made confession of imputed guilt. They 
sent their soldiers into the country, and quartered them at 
what was called " free quarters." The English Yeomanry 
and the Orange Yeomanry of Ireland lived upon tjie people ; 
they violated the women, they killed the aged, they plun- 



156 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

dered the houses, they set fire to the villages, they exercised 
every form of torture the most terrible, — this terrible sol- 
diery. All this took place before a single rising in Ireland, 
before the rebellion of '98 sprung up at all. We had a 
brave and gallant man sent to Ireland at that time — Sir 
Halph Abercrombie ; — and he declared he was so frightened 
and disgusted at the conduct of the soldiers, that he threw 
up his commission, and refused to take the command of the 
forces in Ireland. 'He issued a general order in February, 
'98 — the rebellion did not begin until May. He began his 
general order with these words : — '' The very disgraceful 
frequency of great cruelties and crimes, and the many com- 
j^laints of the conduct of the troops in this kingdom, has too 
unfortunately proved the army to be in a state of licentious- 
ness that renders it formidable to every one, except the 
enemy." Then he threw up his commission in disgust ; and 
General Lake was sent to command in Ireland. He says : — 

" The state of the country and its occupation previous to 
the insurrection, is not to be imagined, except by those who 
witnessed the atrocities of every description committed by 
the military and the Orangemen, that were let loose upon 
the unfortunate and defenceless population." 

Then he gives a long list of terrible hangings, burnings, 
and niurderings. We read that '' at Dunlavin, in the county 
of Wicklow, previous to the rising, thirty-four men were 
shot without any trial." But it is useless to enumerate or 
continue the list of cruelties perpetrated. It will suffice to 
say that where the military were placed on free cparters all 
kinds of crimes were committed ; but the people were no 
worse off than those living where no soldiers were quar- 
tered ; for in the latter places the inhabitants were called to 
their doors and shot without ceremony, and every house was 
plundered or burned. Nay, more ! We have Mr. Emmet, 
in his examination, giving his evidence and declaiing that 



IBELAND AJSTD AMEBICA. 157 

it was the fault of tlie Government, this rebellion of '98. 
The Lord Chancellor put the following question to Mr. 
Emmet: " Pray, Mr. Emmet " — this was in August, '98— 
'' what caused the late insurrection ? " to which Mr. Emmet 
replied, '' Free quarters, house-burnings, tortures, and the 
military executions in the counties of Kildare, Carlo w, and 
Yv^icklow/' Before the insurrection broke out, numbers of 
houses, with their furniture, in which concealed arms had been 
found, were burned. Numbers of people were daily scourged, 
picketed, and otherwise put to death to force confession of 
concealed crime or plots. Outrageous acts of severity were 
often committed even by persons not in the regular troops. 
But we have the evidence of the brave Sir John Moore, the 
hero of Corunna. He was in Ireland at the time, in mili- 
tary command, and he bears this testimony. Speaking of 
WickloWj the very hot-bed of the insurrection, he says, that 
^' moderate treatment by the Generals and the preventing of 
the troops from pillaging and molesting the people, would 
soon restore tranquillity ; the latter would certainly be quiet 
if the Yeomanry would behave with tolerable decency, and 
not seek to gratify their ill-humor and revenge upon the 
poor." 

We have the testimony of Sir William Napier, not an 
Irishman, but a brave English soldier, saying : 

" AVhat manner of soldiers were these fellows who were let 
loose upon the wretched districts in which the Ascendancy 
were placed, killing, burning, and confiscating every man's 
property ; and, to use the venerable Abercrombie's words, 
'they were formidable to everybody but the enemy'? We 
ourselves were young at the time ; yet, being connected with 
the army, we were continually among the soldiers listening 
with boyish eagerness to their experiences; and well we 
remember, with horror, to this day, the tales of lust, of 
bloodshed and pillage, and the recital of their foul actions 
against the miserable peasantry, wdiich they used to relate." 



158 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

I ask you, in all this goading of the people into rebel- 
lion, who was accountable if not the infamous government 
which, at the time, ruled the destinies of Ireland ? I ask 
you are the Irish people accountable, if, from time to time, 
the myrmidons of England have been let loose upon them, 
ravaging them like tigers, violating every instinct of Irish 
love of land, of Ii'ish purity, of Irish faith? Is it not a 
natural though a terrible thing, that, after all these provoca- 
tions, which they deliberately put before the people, they 
goaded them into the rebellion of '98, and so prepared the 
way for that union of 1800 which followed. Mr. Froude 
says : " Several hot-headed priests put themselves at the 
head of their people." There was a Father John Murphy 
in the county of Wexford. He came home from his duties, 
one day, to find the houses of the poor people around sacked 
and burned; to find his unfortunate parishioners huddled 
about the blackened walls of the chapel, crying : " Soggarth 
dear, what are we to do ? what are we to do ? where are we 
to fly from this terrible persecution that has come upon us ? " 
And Father John Murphy got the pikes, put them in their 
hands, and put himself at their head ! So you see, my 
friends, there are two sides to every story. 

My friends, I have endeavored to give you some portions 
of the Irish side of the story, resting and basing my testi- 
mony upon the records of Protestant and English w^riters, 
and upon the testimony, which I have been so proud to put 
before you, of noble, generous American people. I have to 
apologize for the dryness of the subject, and the imperfect 
manner in which I have treated it, and also for the uncon- 
scionable length of time in which I have tried your patience. 
In the next lecture we shall be approaching ticklish ground : 
— '' Ireland since the Union ; " Ireland as she is to-day ; and 
Ireland as, my heart and brain tell me, she shall be in some 
future day. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 

{Delivered in the Academy of Music ^ New TorJc^ Nov. 26, 1872.) 

THE FUTUEE OF IRELAND. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : On this day, a paragraph in a 
newspaper, the N'ew York Tribune^ was brought under my 
notice ; and the reading of it caused me very great pain and 
anguish of mind ; for it recorded an act of discourtesy offered 
to my learned antagonist, Mr. Froude, and supposed to be of- 
fered by Irishmen in Boston. In the aame of the Irishmen of 
America, I tender to the learned gentleman my best apologies. 
I beg to assure him, for my Irish fellow-countrymen in this 
land, that we are only too happy to offer to him the courtesy 
and the hospitality that Ireland has never refused, even to 
her enemies. Mr. Froude does not come among us as an 
enemy of Ireland ; but he professes that he loves the Irish 
people ; and I am willing to believe him. And when I read 
in the report of his last lecture, which I am about to answer 
to-night J that he said that he '' would yield to no man in his 
love for the Irish people," I was reminded of what O'Con- 
nell said to Lord Derby on a similar occasion. When the 
noble lord stated in the English House of Lords that he 
would yield to no man in his love for Ireland, the great 
Tribune rose and said : " Any man that loves Ireland can- 
not be my enemy. Let our hearts shake hands." I am 
sure, therefore, that I speak the sentiments of every true 
Irishman in America, when I assure this learned English 
gentleman that, as long as he is in this country, he will re- 



160 ENGLISH MISBULE IN IRELAND. 

ceive at the hands of the Irish citizens of America nothing 
but the same courtesy, the same polite hospitality and atten- 
tion, which he boasts that he has received from the Irish 
people in their native land. I beg to assure him that we, 
Irishmen, in America, knov/ well that it is not with dis- 
courtesy, or anything approaching to rudeness or violence, 
that the Irish citizens of America ever expect to make their 
appeal to this great nation. If ever the reign of intellect 
and of mind was practically established in this world, it is in 
glorious America. Every man who seeks the truth, every 
man who preaches the truth, — whether it be religious truth 
or historical truth, — will find an audience in America. And 
I hope he never will find an Irishman to stand up and ofier 
him discourtesy and violence, because he speaks what he 
imagines to be the truth. 

So much being said in reference to this paragraph to which 
I have alluded, I now come to the last of Mr. Froude's lect- 
ures, and to the last of my own. The learned gentleman, 
in his fourth lecture, told the American people his view of 
the movement of 1782, and of the subsequent Irish rebellion 
of 1798. According to Mr. Froude, the Irish made a great 
mistake in 1782 by asserting the independence of the Irish 
Parliament. " They abandoned," says this learned gentle- 
man, " the paths of political reform ; and they clamored for 
political agitation." Now, political agitation is one thing, 
and j)olitical reform is another thing. Political reform, my 
friends, means the correcting of great abuses, the repealing 
of bad laws and the passing of good measures, salutary and 
useful, for the welfare and well-being of the people. Accord- 
ing to this learned gentleman, England, — taught, by her bit- 
ter American experience, that coercion would not answer 
with the people, and that it is impossible to thrust unjust 
laws down the throats of a people or a nation, even at the 
sword's point — according to him, England was only too will- 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 161 

ing, too happy, in the year 1780, to repeal all the bad laws 
that had been passed in the blind and bigoted ages that had 
gone by, and to grant to Ireland a real redress of all her 
grievances. But, says Mr. Froude, " The Irish people 
were foolish. Instead of demanding from England the re- 
dress of these grievances, they insisted upon their National 
and Parliamentary independence ; and," he adds, " they were 
foolish in this ; for that very independence led to interior con- 
tention, contention to conspiracy, conspiracy to rebellion, re- 
bellion to tyranny." Now, I am as great an enemy of polit- 
ical agitation as Mr. Froude, or any other man. I hold, and 
I hold it by experience, that political agitation distracts men's 
minds from the more serious and the more necessary occupa- 
tions of life ; that political agitation draws men's minds away 
from their business, and from the sober pursuits of industry ; 
that it creates animosities and bad blood between citizens ; 
that it affords an easy and profitable employment for worthless 
demagogues ; and very often brings to the surface the vilest 
and meanest elements of society. All that I grant. But, at 
the same time, I hold that political agitation is the only re- 
source left to a people who endeavor to extract good laws 
from an unwilling and tyrannical government. May I ask 
the learned historian what w^ere the wars of the seventeenth 
century, in France, in Germany, and in the Netherlands ? — 
the wars that Mr. Froude himself admires so much, and for 
which he expresses so much sympathy ; — what were they 
but political agitation taking the form of armed revolt, in 
order to extort from the governments of that time what the 
people considered to be just measures of toleration and lib- 
erty of conscience ? With these wars, that were waged by 
the people in armed revolt, against France, against Spain, in 
the Netherlands ; against the Emperor Charles the Fifth, of 
Austria ; — with these Mr. Froude has the deepest sympathy ; 
because they were wars made by Protestants against Catholic 



162 EJ^iGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

governments. The men who made these Avars were innova- 
tors, or revohitionists in every sense of the word. They 
wanted to overturn not only the altar, but also the estab- 
lished forms of government. But with the Irish, who only 
stood in defence of their ancient religion and of their time- 
honored altars, of their lives and property ; — not of their 
freedom — for that was long gone ; — for the Irish — this 
learned gentleman has not a word, except expressions of dis- 
dain and disapprobation. 

And now we come to consider whether Mr. Froude is 
right, when he says that the Irish foolishly clamored for 
political agitation in 1780, when they might have obtained 
political reform. Now, mark : — In 1780, the Irish people 
— and mainly the Protestant portion of the Irish people, — 
demanded of the English Government the repeal of certain 
laws that restricted and almost annihilated the trade and 
commerce of Ireland. These laws had been passed under 
William III. They were levelled at the Irish woollen 
trade ; they forbade the exportation of manufactured cloth 
from Ireland, except under a duty that Avas a prohibitive 
tariff. They went so far as to prohibit the Irish people 
from even selling their fleeces — their wool — to any foreign 
power except England. England fixed her own prices ; and 
Mr. Froude himself acknowledges that although the French 
might be offering three shillings a pound for the wool, 
Ireland was obliged to sell it to the English merchant at 
his own price. When the Irish people demanded the 
repeal of this unjust measure, I ask you, was England 
v.dlling to grant it ? Was England, as Mr. Froude says, 
only anxious to disco A^er the unjust laAv in order to re- 
peal it, and to discover grievances in order to redress 
them ? I ansAver, no. England nailed her colors to the 
mast, and said, " I never Avdll grant the repeal of the re- 
strictive duties upon Irish trade. Ireland is doAvn, and I 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. • 163 

will keep her down." The proof lies here : The English 
Government resisted Grattan's demand for the emancipation 
of Irish industry, until Henry Grattan brought 50,000 
'' Volunteers ; " and the very day that he rose in the Irish 
Parliament, to proclaim that Ireland demanded her commer- 
cial rights once more, the Volunteers, in College Green and 
Stephen's Green, in Dublin, had their artillery out, and had 
them planted before the door of the House of Commons ; 
and around the mouths of the guns they had put a label — 

a significant label — '' Free Trade for Ireland ; or ! " If 

England was so willing to redress every Irish grievance — 
if the Irish people had only to say, " Look here, there is 
this law in existence ; take it away, for it is strangling and 
destroying the commerce of the country " — if England was 
so willing to take away that law, — and Mr. Froude says she 
was ; if she was only anxious to hear where the defect was 
in order to remedy it, why, in the name of God — wliy, in 
that day of 1780, did she hold out until, at the very can- 
non's mouth, she was obliged to yield the commercial inde- 
pendence of Ireland ? Is it any wonder that the Irish 
people thought, with Henr}^ Grattan, that, if every measure 
of reform was to be fought for, that the kingdom would be 
kept in a perpetual state of revolution ? Is it any wonder 
that men said : — '' If we have got to fight for every act 
of justice, we must always be ready, with our torches 
lighted and our cannons loaded " ? Is it any wonder that 
the Irish people should have said, in that day, with their 
immortal leader : " It is far better for us to have our own 
Parliament, free and independent, to take up tlie making of 
our own lav/s, and consult for our interests, and in peace, 
quietness, and harmony, to take thought for the wants of 
Ireland and legislate for them " ? And this is what Mr. 
Froude calls "clamoring for political agitation." Thus we 
see, my friends, — (and, remember, tliis evening, fellow- 



164 • ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

countrymen, that I am emphatically and especially appealing 
to America ; that I expect my verdict this evening, as Mr. 
Fronde got his ; but it is not from Dr. Hitchcock ; it is not 
the puny crow of a barndoor fowl, but it is the scream of 
America's Eagle that I expect to hear this evening ;) — thus 
we see that the action of 1782, by which Grattan obtain- 
ed and achieved the independence of the Irish Parlia- 
ment, did not originate in any innate love of the Irish for 
political agitation, but in the action of the British Govern- 
ment, that forced it upon them, and gave them only two 
alternatives — '^ Remain subject to me, to my Parliament; 
but I never will grant you anything except at the cannon's 
mouth ; or take your own liberty and legislate for your- 
selves." Oh ! Henry Grattan ! you were not a Catholic ; 
and yet I, a Catholic priest, here, to-night, call down ten 
thousand blessings on thy name and memory ! 

It is true that that emancipated Parliament of 1782 
failed to realize the hopes of the Irish nation ; — perfectly 
true! The Parliament of 1782 was a failure. I grant it. 
Mr. Froude says that that Parliament was a failure because 
the Irish were incapable of self-legislation. It is a serious 
charge to make against any people, my friends ; yet I, who 
am not supposed to be a ])hilosopher — and, because of the 
habit that I wear, I am not supposed to be a man of very large 
mind, — I stand up here to-night and assert my conviction 
that there is not a nation nor a race under the sun that is 
not capable of self-legislation, and that has not a right to the 
inheritance of freedom. But, if the learned gentleman 
wishes to know what was the real cause of that failure, I 
will tell him. The emancipated Parliament of 1782, al- 
though it inclosed within its walls such honored names as 
Grattan and Flood, yet it did not represent the Irish nation. 
There were nearly three millions and a half of Irishmen in 
Ireland at that day ; — three millions of Catholics, and half a 



THE FUTURE OF lEELAND, 165 

million of Protestants ; and the Parliament of 1782 only rep- 
resented the half million. IsTay, more : examine the Consti- 
tution of that Parliament, and see who they were ; see how 
they were elected, and you will find that not even the half 
million of Protestants were fairly represented by that Par- 
liament. The House of Commons held 300 members. Of 
these 300 there were only 72 elected by the people ; the rest 
were the nominees of certain great lords — certain large 
landed proprietors. A man happened to have an estate, — 
a side of the country, which contained three or four towns or 
villages, — and each town returned its member. The land- 
lord went in and said : '' You v/ill elect such a man ; he is 
my nominee ; " and he was elected at once. They were 
called '^rotten boroughs;" they were called '^ nomination 
boroughs ; " and they were also called '' pocket boroughs," 
because my lord had them in his pocket. Have any of you, 
Irishmen, who are here present to-night, ever travelled from 
Dublin to Drogheda ? There is a miserable village ; — half 
a dozen wretched huts ; — it is the dirtiest, filthiest place I 
ever saw ; and that miserable village returned a member to 
the Irish Parliament ! Had that Parliament of 1782 repre- 
sented the Irish people — [the three millions of Catholics 
had not as much as a vote ; — the best and most intellectual 
Catholic in Ireland had not even a vote for a member of 
Parliament;] — had that Parliament represented the Irish 
nation, it would have solved the problem of '' Home Pule " 
in a sense favorable to Ireland, and very unfavorable to the 
theories of Mr. Froude. 

The Irish people knew this well ; and the moment that the 
Parliament of 1782 was declared independent of the Parlia- 
ment of England, — was declared to have the power of origi- 
nating its own ^acts, of legislating, and being responsible to 
no one except the King, — that moment the Irish people 
clamored for reform. They said : '' Reform yourselves now, 



1G6 ENGLISH MISRULE m IBELAND. 

Parliament. Let the people in, and represent them 
fairly ; and you will make a grand success of your indepen- 
dence." 

The "Volunteers," to their honor, cried out for reform. 
In their first meeting at Dungannon, when they w^ere 95,000 
strong, the. one thing they demanded was reform of the Par- 
liament. The " United Irishmen " who, in the beginning, were 
not a secret society, nor a treasonable society, but open, free, 
loyal men, embracing the first names and first characters in 
Ireland, — the " United Irishmen " actually originated as a 
society, embracing the best intellect in Ireland, for the 
purpose of forcing reform on the Parliament. It may be 
interesting to the citizens of America w^ho have honored 
me with their presence this evening; it may be interest- 
ing to my Irish fellows-countrymen to know what wxre 
the three principles upon which the society of United Irish- 
men was formed. Here they are : First of all, the first res- 
olution of that society was that " the weight of English in- 
fluence, in this Government, and this country, is so great as 
to require cordial union among all the people of Ireland to 
maintain that balance which is essential to the preservation 
of our liberties and to the extension of our commerce." 
Pesolution No. 2, '^ That the only constitutional means by 
which this influence of England can be opposed is by com- 
plete, cordial, and radical reform of the representation of the 
people in Parliament." Pesolution No. 3, " That no reform 
is just which does not include every Irishman of every re- 
ligious persuasion." There you have the whole programme 
of this formidable society of the "United Irishmen; " and 

1 ask you, citizens of America, is there anything treasonable, 
is there anything reprehensible, is there anything deserving 
of imprisonment, of banishment, or death in such a resolu- 
tion as this ? "Who opposed and hindered that reform ? 
who stood between the Irish people and their Parliament 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 167 

and said — " No ; there shall be no reform ; you must re- 
main the representatives of a faction, and not of the nation ; 
you must remain the corrupt and venal representatives of 
only a small portion even of the Protestant faction." Who 
said this ? The Government of England. Here is my 
proof. On the 29th of November, 1783, Mr. Flood intro- 
duced into the Irish Parliament a bill of reform. The mo- 
ment that bill was read, an honorable member rose up to 
oppose it. That member was Barry Yelverton, who was 
afterwards Lord Avonmore. He was the Attorney-General 
of the Government for Ireland ; and he gave to the bill an 
official and Governmental opposition. The bill was thrown 
out by a majority of 159 to 77 ; the 159, every one of them, 
having a bribe in his pocket. Then, the Attorney- General, 
Mr. Yelverton, rose uj) ; and he made this motion, 'Hhat it 
has now become necessary to declare that this House will 
maintain its just rights and j)rivileges against all encroach- 
ments whatsoever ; " — the "just rights and privileges" being 
the right to represent a faction, and ex chide from all repre- 
sentation five-sixths of the people of Ireland. 

'' From agitation," says Mr. Fronde, " grew conspiracy ; 
from conspiracy, rebellion." By conspiracy, he means the 
society of " United Irishmen." By rebellion, he means the 
uprising of '98. Now, in my last lecture, I have shown 
you, on the evidence of such illustrious men as Sir Palph 
Abercrombie, and Sir John Moore, the hero of Corunna, that 
the rebellion of '98 was, primarily and originally, the work 
of the British Government, which goaded the Irish people 
into revolt. We have also seen, a moment ago, that the 
society of " United Irishmen " was not a conspiracy, but a 
public society, — a magnificent union of the best intellects 
and best men in Ireland for a splendid and patriotic pur- 
pose, to be accomplished by fair, loyal, and legitimate 
means. But the principle upon which the " United Irish- 



168 ENGLISH MISBULE IN IRELAND. 

men " were formed was the principle of ejecting a union 
among all Irishmen ; and • this was enough to alarm the 
Goverimient, which, from time immemorial, for many cen- 
turies, had ruled Ireland through division. The motto — 
the word — that Mr. Froude so eloquently used, when he 
said, that " on the day that Ireland will be united she will 
be invincible," — that was present in the mind of England's 
Prime Minister, the celebrated William Pitt, when he re- 
solved on three things: He resolved first, to disarm the 
" Volunteers ; " secondly, to force the " United Irishmen" to 
become a secret society or conspiracy ; and thirdly, he re- 
solved to force Ireland into a rebellion, that he might have 
her at his feet. How did he bring these three things 
about ? Hemember that I am reviewing all these things his- 
torically. I have no prejudices in the matter. I declare 
to you, that, with the exception of the momentary ebullition 
or boiling up of the blood that I feel in my chamber, when 
preparing these lectures, I feel nothing but that. I am not 
like others. I believe, for instance, that Mr. Froude has 
no business to write history, because he is a good philoso- 
l^her. A philosopher is a man who endeavors to trace effects 
to their causes ; who sets up a theory and tries to work it 
out ; and that is the last man in the world that ought to 
write history. And why ? Because a historian is supposed 
to be a narrator of dry facts ; and I hold, ought not to deal 
in theories or fancies at all. I believe my learned antago- 
nist to be too much of a philosopher to be a good historian. 
I also believe that he is too much of a historian to be a good 
philosopher. 

Tlie first of these three designs of William Pitt was ac- 
complished in 1785. He increased the standing army in 
Ireland to 15,000 men. He obtained, from the Irish Par- 
liament, a grant of £20,000, to clothe and arm the militia. 
Between the army on the one side, and the militia on 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 169 

the other, he took the " Volunteers " in the centre, and 
disarmed them. On the day when the last of the '' Volun- 
teers " laid down their muskets, Ireland's hopes were laid 
down with them. 

The second of these designs, — namely, the forcing of the 
'' United Irishmen " to become a secret conspiracy, he 
effected in this manner : — In February, 1793, he passed two 
bills through Parliament, called the " Gunpowder Bill," and 
the '^ Convention Bill." A public meeting of the '' United 
Irishmen " was held in Dublin ; — a public meeting, — there 
was nothing secret about it, — to protest against the inquisi- 
torial measures of certain agents of a secret committee of the 
House of Lords, in going into people's houses at any hour 
of the day or night, without any authority, — under pretence 
that there was gunpowder concealed in the house. For this 
meeting, held legally and constitutionally, the Hon. Simon 
Butler, who was president of the meeting, and Mr. Oliver 
Bond, who v/as the secretary, were both imprisoned six 
months, and fined £500 each. When this illustrious soci- 
ety found that they were thus persecuted, they were obliged 
to take refuge in secresy ; and thus it was that the " United 
Irishmen " were forced to become a conspiracy. 

The first really treasonable project that was ever put be- 
fore the " United Irishmen," was put before them in April, 
1794, by the Bev. William Jackson, a Protestant clergyman, 
who came over commissioned by the French Convention; 
and the Bev. William Jackson, who was a true man, was 
accompanied on that mission by a certain John Cockayne, 
an English lawyer, from London ; and he was the agent of 
William Pitt, the Prime Minister of England. Thus did the 
society of the "United Irishmen" become a secret conspir- 
acy ; and this was the action of the English Government. 
Before that, it was perfectly legitimate and constitutional. 
Ah ! but it had an object, which was far more formidable to 
8 



170 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

the English Government than any commission of Irish trea- 
son. The English Government is not afraid of Irish trea- 
son ; but the English Government trembles ^vith fear at the 
idea of Irish union. The " United Irishmen " were founded 
to promote union among all Irishmen, of every religion ; 
and the English Minister had said in his own mind : " Trea- 
son is better than union. I will force them to become a 
treasonable conspiracy ; and their project of union will be 
broken up." It is worth your while, my American friends, 
to hear what was the oath that was administered by the 
" United Irishmen." Here it is. Let us suppose that I 
was going to be sworn in : — 

''I, Thomas Burke, in the presence of God, do pledge 
myself to my country, that I will use all my abilities and in- 
fluence in the attainment of an impartial and adequate rep- 
resentation of the Irish nation in Parliament, and, as a most 
absolute and immediate necessity for the attainment of this 
chief good of Ireland, I will endeavor, as much as lies in my 
ability, to forward and perpetuate the identity of interests, 
the union of rights, and the union of power among Irishmen 
of all religious persuasions, without which every reform in 
Parliament must be partial, not national ; inadequate to the 
wants, and wholly and entirely insufficient for the freedom 
and happiness of this country." 

This was the United Irishman's oath. I protest before 
high Heaven to-night, that, priest as I am, if I were asked, 
in 1779, to take that oath, I would have taken it and kept 
it. Kemember, my friends, that it was no secret oath ; re- 
member that it was no treasonable oath ; remember that it 
was an oath that no man could refuse to take, unless he was 
a dishonorable man and a traitor to his country. 

The founder of this society was Theobald Wolfe Tone. I 
admit that Mr. Tone was imbued with French revolutionary 
ideas; but he certainly never -attempted to impress these 
views upon the society until Mr. William Pitt, the Prime 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 171 

Minister of England, forced that society to become a secret 
organization. 

The third object of the Premier and the Government, 
namely, to create an Irish rebellion, was accomplished by 
the cruelties and abominations of the soldiers, who were quar- 
tered at " free quarters " upon the people, destroying them, 
— violating that most sacred and inviolable sanctuary of 
Irish maidenhood and womanhood, — burning the people's vil- 
lages, plundering their farms, demolishing and gutting their 
houses ; until, at length, they made life more intolerable 
than death itself; goading the people, at the very bayonet's 
point, to rise in that fatal Rebellion of '98. 

Thus I answer Mr. Fronde's assertion that " the Irish peo- 
ple left the paths of political reform, and clamored for polit- 
ical agitation; from agitation grew conspiracy, and from 
conspiracy grew rebellion." Now, you may ask me, what 
motive had William Pitt, the Premier of England, to do all 
this. What advantage was it to him to have conspiracy and 
rebellion in Ireland ? Oh ! my friends, I answer you, that 
William Pitt was a great English statesman, and a great 
English statesman, in those days, meant a great enemy to 
Ireland. The object of great statesmanship, from time to 
time, is the effort and object of concentration ; — a fatal prin- 
ciple, — a fatal principle, whenever it interferes with the just 
liberty, the time-honored traditions, or the genius of a free 
people. Pitt saw Ireland with a Parliament, free and inde- 
pendent, making her own laws and consulting her own in- 
terests. He said to himself: *' This will never do; this 
country will grow happy and prosperous — this country will 
be powerful : and that will not subserve my purposes, my 
imperial designs. What do I care for Ireland or the Irish ? 
My only care is for the British Empire ; I may have to cross 
their purposes, and interfere with their interests in a thou- 
sand ways ; I may have to injure them, in this way or that ; 



172 ENGLISH MISEULE IN IRELAND, 

but I cannot do it, so long as they have a free Parliament." 
And he made up his mind to destroy the Irish Parliament, 
and to carry the '' Act of Union." He knew well that, as 
long as Ireland was happy, peaceful, and prosperous, he never 
could effect that. He knew well that it was only through 
humiliation and blood — through the ruin and destruction of 
Ireland, that he could do it ; and, cruel man as he was, he 
resolved to plunge the kingdom into rebellion and bloodshed 
in order to carry out his own infernal English State policy. 
And yet, dear friends, especially my dear American friends, 
my grand jury, — ^for I feel as if I were a lav/yer — pleading 
the case of a poor defendant, that has been defendant in 
many a court, for many a long century : the plaintiff is a 
great, rich, powerful woman ; the poor defendant has nothing 
to commend her but a heart that has never yet despaired — a 
spirit that never yet was broken ; and a loyalty to God and 
to man that never yet v/as violated by one act of treason : — 
I ask you, O grand jury of America, to consider how easy it 
was to conciliate this poor mother Ireland of mine, and to 
make her peaceful and happy. Pitt himself had a proof of 
it in that very year, 1794. Suddenly the imperious and 
magnificent Premier of England seemed to have changed his 
mind, and to have adopted a policy of conciliation and kind- 
ness towards Ireland. He recalled the Irish Lord Lieuten- 
ant, Lord Westmoreland, and he sent to Ireland Earl Fitz- 
william, who arrived on the 4th of January, 1795. Lord 
Eitzv/illiam was a gentleman of liberal mind and a most es- 
timable character. He felt kindly towards the Irish people ; 
and before he left England, he made an express compact with 
William Pitt that, if he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
land, he would govern the countiy on principles of concilia- 
tion and kindness. He came. He found in Dublin Castle 
a certain Secretary Cooke, a petty tyrant ; and he found the 
gi^eat family of the Beresfords, who, for years and years, had 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 173 

monopolized all the public offices and emoluments of the 
State, and held uncontrolled sv/ay over the destinies of Ire- 
land. He dismissed them all, — sent them all " to the right 
about ; " — and he surrounded himself with men of liberal 
minds and large, statesmanlike views. He began by telling 
the Catholics of Ireland that he would labor for their eman- 
cipation. A siidden peace and joy spread throughout the 
nation. Every vestige of insubordination and rebellion 
seemed to vanish out of the Irish mind. The people were 
content to wait. Every law was observed. Peace, happi- 
ness, and joy were, for the time being, the portion of the 
Irish people. How long did it last ? In an evil hour, Pitt 
returned to his old designs. Earl Fitzwilliam was recalled 
on the 25th of March ; and Ireland enjoyed her hopes only 
for two short months. 

When it was ascertained that Lord Fitzwilliam was about 
to be recalled, there was scarcely a parish in Ireland that did 
not send in petitions, resolutions, and prayers to the English 
Government to leave them their Lord Lieutenant. All to 
no purpose. The policy was changed. Pitt had made up 
his mind to carry the Union. ^ On the day that Lord Fitz- 
william left Dublin, the principal citizens took the horses 
from his carriage ; and they drew the carriage themselves 
down to the water's side. All Ireland was in tears. '' The 
scene," says an historian of the time, " was heart-rending ; 
the whole nation was in mourning." How easy it was, my 
American friends, to conciliate these people, whom two short 
months of kindness could have thus changed ! Oh ! if only 
the English Government, the English Parliament, the Eng- 
lish people, — if they could only realize to themselves, for 
ever so short a time, the mine of affection, that glorious 
heart, that splendid gratitude that lies there in Ireland, but 
to which they have never appealed and never touched ; — but 



174 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

instead, they have turned the very honey of human nature 
into the gall and bitterness of hatred ! 

The rebellion broke out. It was defeated ; and as Mr. 
Froude truly says, the victors took away the old privileges, 
and made the yoke heavier. By the " old privileges," peo- 
ple of America, Mr. Fronde means the Irish Parliament 
that was taken away. I hope, citizens of America, that this 
English gentleman, who has come here to get " a verdict " 
from you, will be taught by that verdict that the right to 
home legislation is not a privilege, but the right of every 
nation on the face of the earth. Then, in the course of his 
lecture, going back to strengthen his argument, he says : — 
" You must not blame England for being so hard upon you, 
Irishmen. She took away your Parliament ; she afflicted 
you with a heavier yoke than you bore before. She couldn't 
help it; it was your own fault; what made you rebel?" 
This is the argument which the learned gentleman uses. He 
says that the penal laws would never have been established, 
never v/ould have been carried out, only for the revolution 
of 1600 in Ireland. Now, the revolution of 1600 means 
the war that Hugh O'Neill made, in Ulster, against Queen 
Elizabeth. And, according to this learned historian, the 
penal laws were the result, the effect, the consequence of 
that revolution. Kemember, he fixes the date himself: — he 
says 1600. Now, my friends, here is the record of history : 
The penal laws began to operate in Ireland in 1534. In 1537 
the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, who 
was an Englishman — his name was Cromer — was put into 
jail and left there for denying the supremacy of Henry the 
Eighth over the Church of God. Passing over the succeed- 
ing years of Henry the Eighth's reign ; passing over the en- 
actments of Somerset, under Edward the Sixth, we come to 
Elizabeth's reign ; and we find that she assembled a Parlia- 
ment in 1560, — forty years before Mr. Froude's revolution. 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 175 

Here is one of the laws passed by that Parliament : All of- 
ficers and ministers, lay or ecclesiastical, — that took us in, 
you see, — were bound to take the oath of supremacy, and 
were bound to swear that Queen Elizabeth was the Popess 
— that she was the head of the Church ; that she was the 
successor of the Apostles — that she was the representative 
of St. Peter, and, through him, of the Eternal Son of God ! 
Queen Elizabeth ! All were obliged to take this oath under 
pain of forfeiture and total incapacity. Any one who main- 
tained the spiritual supremacy, — mind, the spiritual suprem- 
acy, — of the Pope was to forfeit, for the first offence, all 
his estates, real and personal ; and if he had no estate, and 
if he was not worth £20, he was to be put in jail for one 
year. For the second ofience he Avas liable to the penalty of 
" praemunire." And, for the third offence, he was guilty of 
high treason, and put to death. These laws were made, and 
commissioners were apj)ointed to enforce them. Mr. Froude 
says they were not enforced in Ireland. But we actually 
have the acts of Elizabeth's Parliament, appointing magis- 
trates and officers to go out and enforce these laws. And 
these laws v/ere made forty years before the revolution 
which Mr. Froude alludes to as the revolution of 1600. How, 
then, can that gentleman ask us to regard the penal laws as 
the effect of that revolution ? In my philosophy, and, I be- 
lieve, in that of the citizens of America, the effect gener- 
ally follows the cause ; but the English philosophical his- 
torian puts the effect forty years ahead of the cause. That 
is, as we say in Ireland, ^' putting the cart before the horse." 
But, Mr. Froude told us, if you remember, — in his sec- 
ond lecture, if you have read it, — that the penal laws of 
Elizabeth were occasioned by the political necessity of her 
situation. Here is his argument as he himself puts it. He 
says : — '' Elizabeth could not afford to let Ireland be Catho- 
lic ; because if Ireland were Catholic, Ireland would be hos- 



176 ENGLISH MISRULE IN lEELAND, 

tile to Elizabeth." I may tell you now (I hope the ladies 
who are here will excuse me for mentioning such a thing), 
that Queen Elizabeth was not a legitimate child. Her name, 
in common parlance, is too vile for me to utter, or for the 
ladies here to hear. Suffice it to say that Elizabeth's mother 
was not Elizabeth's father's wife. The Queen of England 
knew the ancient abhorrence that Ireland had for a base- 
bom child. She knew that abhorrence grew out of Ireland's 
Catholicity ; and therefore she could not allow Ireland to re- 
main Catholic (says Mr. Froude), because Ireland would be 
hostile to her if Ireland remained Catholic. The only v/ay 
in which this amiable Queen could root out the Catholics of 
Ireland was by penal laws ; making it a felony for any Irish- 
man to remain in Ireland a Catholic. Therefore, the English 
historian says : that " she passed these laws because she 
could not help herself; " and that she was " coerced to do so 
by the necessity of her situation." Now, I argue from this 
very argument of Mr. Froude himself, that if Elizabeth, as 
he states in his second lecture, was obliged to pass these 
penal laws, whether she would or not, why does he turn 
round and say that those penal laws were the effect of Hugh 
O'Neill's revolution ? If they were the result of Elizabeth's 
necessity, then they were not the result of the immortal 
Hugh O'Neill's brave efforts. 

His next assertion, my friends, is that, after the American 
war, England was only too well disposed to do justice to Ire- 
land ; and the proof lies here : He says that the laws against 
Catholics were almost repealed before 1798. Yery well. I 
ask you, dear friends, to reflect upon what these large meas- 
ures of indulgence to the Catholics were of which Mr. 
Froude speaks. Here they are: In the year 1771, Parlia- 
ment passed an act, to enable Catholics to take a long lease 
of fifty acres of bog. My American friends, you may not un- 
derstand the word bog. We Irish understand it. It means 



THE FUTUBE OF IBELAFD, 177 

a marsh which is almovst irreclaimable ; which you may 
drain and drain until doomsday, and it will still remain the 
original marsh. You may sink a fortune in it, in arterial 
drainage, in ^* top-dressing^" as we call it in Ireland ; and, if 
you let it alone for a couple of years, and then come back and 
look at it, it has asserted itself, and is a bog once more. 
However, my friends, the Parliament was kinder than yoir 
imagine, for, while they granted to the Catholic power to 
take a long lease of fifty acres of bog, they also stipulated, 
that if the bog was too deep for a found ation^ he might take 
half an acre of arable land upon which to build a house. 
Half an acre ! For the life of him, not more than half an 
acre. However, this holding, such as it was, sjiould not be 
Avithin a mile of any city or town. Oh, no ! And mark 
this ! If half the bog were not reclaimed, that is five-and- 
twenty acres, within twenty-one years, the lease was forfeited. 
Well, my friends, the Scriptures tell us that King Pharaoh, 
of Egypt, was very cruel to the Hebrews, because he ordered 
them to make bricks .without straw ; but here is an order to 
the unfortunate Irishman to reclaim twenty-five acres of bog, 
or else give up the lease. Now, beggarly- as that concession 
was, you will be astonished to hear that the very Parliament 
that passed it was so much afraid of the Protestant Ascend- 
ancy in Ireland, that in order to conciliate them for the slight 
concession, they passed another bill gi-anting £10 a year, in 
addition to £30 already offered, for every " Popish " Priest 
duly converted to the Protestant religion ! 

In October, 1777, the news reached England that General 
Burgoyne had surrendered to the American General Gates. 
The moment that nev/s reached home. Lord North, who was 
then Prime Minister of England, immediately cried out and 
expressed an ardent desire to relax the penal laws on Catho- 
lics. In January, 1778, the following year, the indepen- 
dence of America was acknowledged by glorious France. 
8* 



178 ENGLISH MISRULE IJST IRELAND, 

The moment that piece of news reached England, the English 
Parliament at once passed a bill for the relaxation of the 
laws on the Catholics. In May of the same year the Irish 
Parliament passed a bill, — now mark, — to enable Catholics 
to lease land — to take a lease for 999 years. So it seems 
we were to get out of the bog at last. They also, in that 
year, repealed the unnatural penal laws which altered the 
succession in favor of the child that became Protestant, and 
gave him his father's property ; also repealing the law for 
the prosecution of priests, and for the imprisonment of 
'' Popish " schoolmasters. In the year 1793, they gave back 
to the Catholics the power of electing Members of Parlia- 
ment — the power of voting; and they also gave them the 
right to certain commissions in the army. That is, posi- 
tively, all that we got. And that is what Mr. Froude calls 
almost a total repeal of the laws against Catholics. We 
could not go into Parliament ; we could not go on the 
bench ; we could not be magistrates ; we were still the 
" hewers of wood and drawers of water ; " and this mild 
and benign Englishman comes and says : " Why, you fools, 
you were almost free ! " O people of America ! if this be 
Mr. Froude's notion of ciyil and religious freedom, I appeal 
to you, for Ireland, not to give him the verdict. 

" The insurrection of '98," continues the learned gentle- 
man, 'Hhrew Ireland back into a condition of confusion and 
misery, from which she was partially delivered by the Act 
of Union." The first part of that proposition I admit ; 
the second I emphatically deny. I admit that the unsuc- 
cessful rebellion of '98 threw Ireland back into a state of 
misery. Unsuccessful rebellion is one of the greatest calami- 
ties that can befall a nation ; and the sooner Irislunen and 
Irish patriots understand this, the better it will be for them 
and their country. But I emphatically deny that the Act 
of Union was any remedy for these miseries ; that it was 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 179 

any healing whatever for the wounds of Ireland ; that it 
was anything in the shape of a benefit or a blessing. I 
assert that the Union of 1800, by which Ireland lost her 
Parliament, was a pure curse for Ireland, from that day to 
this, and nothing else ; and that it is an evil which must 
be remedied if the grievances of Ireland are ever to be 
redressed. 

I need not dwell upon the wholesale bribery and cor- 
ruption by which the infernal Castlereagh, the political 
apostate, carried that detestable Act of Union. Mr. Froude 
has had the good taste to pass by the dirty subject withT)ut 
touching it, and I think I can do nothing better. 

He says : — " It was expected that whatever grievances 
Ireland complained of would be removed by legislation after 
the Act of Union." It was expected, it is quite true. 
Even the Catholics expected something. They were prom- 
ised, in writing, by Lord Cornwallis, that Catholic Emanci- 
pation should be given them if they would consent to the 
Union. Pitt himself pledged himself, through his Lord 
Lieutenant, that he would never take office and that he 
would never administer or serve in the Government unless 
Catholic Emancipation was made a Cabinet measure. The 
honor of Pitt was engaged ; the honor of England was en- 
gaged ; the honor of the brave, though, in America, unfor- 
tunate soldier, Cornwallis, was engaged. But the wicked 
act was accomplished ; and, then, the Catholics of Ireland 
were left to sing Tom Moore's song — " I'd mourn the hopes 
that leave me." They were left to meditate in bitterness 
of spirit upon the nature of English faith. 

Now, let me introduce an honored name that I shall re- 
turn to by and by. At that time the Parliament of Ireland 
was bribed with money and with titles, and the Catholic 
people of Ireland were bribed by promised emancipation, 
if they would sanction the Union. Then it was that a 



180 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

young man appeared in Dublin, speaking for the first time 
against the Union, in the name of the Catholics of Ireland ; 
and that young man was the glorious Daniel O'Connell. 
Two or three of the Bishops gave a kind of tacit, negative 
assent to the measure, in the hope of getting Catholic Eman- 
cipation. I need hardly tell you, my friends, that the 
Catholic lords of the Pale were only too willing to pass 
any measure that the English Government would require. 
O'Connell appeared before the Catholic Committee in Dub- 
lin, and here are his words, — remember that they are the 
words of the Catholics, of the people, of Ireland: — "Sir," 
he said, "it is my sentiment, and I am satisfied it is the 
sentiment r-t only of every gentleman that hears me, but 
of the Catholic people of Ireland, that they are opposed to 
this injurious, insulting, and hated measure of union. And 
if its rejection has to bring upon us the renewal of the 
penal laws, we would boldly meet the proscription and op- 
pression, v/liich have been the. testimony of our virtue, and 
throw ourselves once more on the mercy of our Protestant 
brethren, sooner than give our assent to the political murder 
of our country." " I know," he says, " I do know that, 
although exclusive advantages may be ambiguously held 
forth to the Irish Catholic, to seduce him from the sacred 
duty which he owes to his country, yet I know that the 
Catholics of Ireland will still remember that they have a 
country ; and they will never accept of any advantage as a 
sect which would debase and destroy them as a people." 
Shade of the great departed, you never uttered truer words. 
Shade of the great O'Connell, every true Irishman, priest 
and layman, subscribes to these glorious sentiments, wher- 
ever that Irishman is to be found. 

Now Mr. Froude goes on, in an innocent sort of way. 
He says : " It is a strange thing that, after the Union was 
passed, the people of Ireland were still grumbling and com- 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND, 181 

plaining ; yet they had no foundation for their complaints ; 
they were not treated unjustly." These are his words. 
Good God ! people of America, what idea can this gentle- 
man have in this ? What did this Union, which he admires 
so much, and which he declares that England will maintain, 
— what did it bring to Ireland ? What gain did it bring to 
Ireland, and what loss did it inflict on her? I answer, 
from history. The gain of the Union to Ireland was simply 
nothing, — absolutely nothing; — and I ask you to consider 
two or three of the losses. 

First of all, then, remember, my friends, that Irelaild, 
before the Union, had her own National Debt, as she had 
her own military establishment. She was a nation. The 
National Debt of Ireland, in the year 1793, did not amount 
to three millions of money. In the year 1800, the year of 
the Union, the National Debt of Ireland amounted to 
twenty-eight millions of money. They increased it ninefold 
in six years. How? I will tell you. England had, in 
Ireland, for her own purposes, at the time of the Union, 
126,500 soldiers. Pretty tough business, that, of keeping 
Ireland down in these days ! She made Ireland pay for 
every man of them. She did not pay a penny of her own 
money for them. In order to carry the Union, England 
spent enormous sums of money for bribes to spies and in- 
formers and to Members of Parliament. She took every 
penny of this money out of the Irish treasury. There were 
eighty-four rotten boroughs disfranchised at the time of 
the Union; and England paid to those who owned those 
boroughs, or who had the nomination of them, — she actually 
paid them one million two hundred thousand pounds ster- 
ling for their loss ; the loss being in losing the nomination 
boroughs, the loss by the proprietor of the corrupt influence 
in returning these members to Parliament. Ireland was 
made to pay this money. O'Connell, speaking on this sub- 



182 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

jectj some years later, says : — " Really, it was strange that 
Ireland was not asked to pay for the knife with which, 
twenty- two years later, Castlereagh cut his throat ! ' ' 

But if the debt of Ireland was swollen from three millions 
before the Union, to twenty-eight millions, I ask you to 
consider what followed. We now come to the period after 
the Union. Mark, my friends ! In January, 1801, — you 
may say the year of the Union, — the debt of England was 
four hundred and fifty millions and a half pounds sterling ; 
and to pay that debt they required £17,708,800; conse- 
quently they had to raise by taxation, eighteen millions, to 
pay the interest on the debt of four hundred and fifty mil- 
lions in that year. Such was the condition of England. In 
the year 1817, sixteen years after, the same debt of England 
had risen from four hundred and fifty millions to seven 
hundred and thirty-five millions, — nearly double ; and they 
had an annual charge of twenty-^ight millions odd to pay. 
So, you see, they doubled their national debt in the sixteen 
years during which Pitt had waged war with Napoleon. 
They were obliged to subsidize and to pay Germans, Rus- 
sians, and all sorts of people to fight against France. At 
one time William Pitt was supporting the whole Austrian 
army. The Austrians had the men, but no money. Now, 
mark this! In Ireland, the debt, in 1801, was twenty- 
eight and one-half millions ; and, consequently, the annual 
taxation was one million two hundred and fifty thousand 
pounds. In the year 1817, the same Irish debt, which, six- 
teen years before, was only twenty -eight millions, was now 
£112,704,000 sterling, and the taxes amounted to four mil- 
lions one hundred and four thousand pounds sterling. In 
other words, in sixteen years the debt of England was 
doubled ; but the debt of Ireland was made four times as 
much as it was in the year in which the Act of Union was 
passed. You may ask me how did that happen ? It hap- 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 183 

penecl from the very fact that, being united to England, 
having lost our Parliament, the English Chancellor of the 
Exchequer took and kept the money and the Irish ac- 
counts, — kept the books. Ireland lost the privilege of keep- 
ing her own accounts. And this is the account he brought 
against Ireland in 1817. 

Ireland was so lightly burdened with debt, at the time of 
the Union, as compared with England, that the English did 
not ask us, when they united our Parliament to their own, 
— they did not presume to ask us, they had not the pre- 
sumption to ask us, — to take share and share alike in the 
taxes. Why should they ? We only owed twenty millions 
and they owed four hundred and fifty millions. Why 
should we be asked to pay the interest on their debt? 
They were rich and could bear that taxation ; Ireland was 
poor, and she could not bear it. Ireland was, consequently, 
much more lightly taxed than England. It was very much 
easier to pay interest on twenty millions of pounds than on 
four hundred and fifty millions. But there was an agreement 
made by Castlereagh with the Irish Parliament. It was 
this. He said : — " That if the Irish national debt ever 
comes up to one-seventh of the national debt of England, 
then we will throw it all in together and tax the people 
share and share alike." The object of running up the Irish 
debt was to bring it up within one-seventh of the English 
debt. This they accomplished in 1817. Then the Irish 
and the English were taxed indiscriminately, and they all 
alike were obliged to pay the taxes for the interest on the 
four hundred and fifty millions of debt that the Crown 
of England had incurred, before the Union at all. And 
the Irish, he says, were not unjustly treated ! " Ah, but," 
says Mr. Froude, '' consider the advantages of the Union ! 
You have the same commercial privileges that the English 



184: ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

had." To this, I answer, in the words of the illustrious, 
the honest, the high-minded John IMitchel : — 

" It is true," (says Mr. Mitchel,) " that the laws regulat- 
ing trade are the same in the two islands. Ireland may 
export flax and woollen cloths to England ; she may import 
her own tea from China and sugar from Barbadoes; the 
laws which made these acts penal offences no longer exist ; 
and why? Because they are no longer needed. By the 
operation of these old laws Ireland was utterly ruined. 
England has the commercial marine ; Ireland has it to 
create. England has the manufacturing machinery and 
skill of which Ireland was deprived by express laws made 
for that purpose. England has the current of trade setting 
strongly in her own channels, while Ireland is left dry. To 
create or recover, at this day, the great industrial and com- 
mercial resources, and that in the face of wealthy rivals that 
s are already in full possession,— is manifestly impossible 
without one or the other of these two conditions, namely — 
an immense command of capital, or efiectual protective 
duties. But, b}^ the Union, our capital was drawn away to 
England ; and by the Union we were deprived of the power 
of imposing protective duties." 

It was to this very end that the Union was forced upon 
Ireland through intolerance of Irish prosperity. " Don't 
unite with us, sir," says the honest old man. Dr. Samuel 
Johnson, when addressed on the subject of union in his day. 
" Don't unite with us, sir ; we shall rob you ! " In the 
very first year after the Union was passed, Mr. Foster 
stated in the English House of Parliament, that there was a 
falling off in the linen trade of Ireland of five millions less 
of yards exported. The same gentleman, three years later, 
stated that in 1800, — the year of the Union, — the net 
produce of the Irish revenue was £2,800,000, while the 
debt was only £25,000,000. Three years later, after three 
years' experience of the Union, the debt had increased to 
£53,000,000, and the revenue had. diminished by £11,000. 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 185 

Ireland was deserted. That absenteeism, which was the 
curse of Ireland in the days of Swift, had so increased by 
the Union, that Dublin became almost a deserted city, and 
all the cities in Ireland were as places in the wilderness. 
At this very day, in Dublin, the Duke of Leinster's city 
palace is turned into a museum of Irish industry. Powers- 
court House, in Dame Street, has become a draper's shop ; 
Tyrone House is a school-house ; the house of the Earl of 
Bective was pulled down a few years ago, to build up a 
Scotch Presbyterian Meeting-House in its place. Charle- 
mont House, — Lord Charlemont's residence, — was sold 
about six months before I came to America ; and it is now 
the head office of the Board of Works ; Aldborough House 
is a barrack ; Belvidere House is a convent. So, fashion, 
trade, commercial activity, intellectual enterprise, political 
interest, everything has gone to London; and Ireland may 
fold her hands, and sigh over the ruin that is left her 
now. And that is the result of the Union. The crumbling 
Liberties of Dublin attest the decay and ruin of the trade of 
Ireland ; the forsaken harbors of Limerick and Galway tell 
of the destruction of her commerce ; the palaces of Dublin, 
abandoned to decay, announce that she is no longer the resi- 
dence of her nobility ; the forlorn custom-houses tell of her 
income transferred elsewhere. What do we get in return 
for all this? Absolutely nothing. Every Irish question 
goes now to London to be debated ; ai;xd the moment an 
Irish member stands up in the House, the first thing he 
may expect is to be coughed down, sneered down, or crowed 
down — unless, indeed, he has the lungs of an O'Connell to 
turn upon them, like an African lion, and, with a roar, put 
down their beastly bellowing. 

Pitt promised Emancipation. Six months after the 
Union was passed, he retired from office, on the pretence, 
indeed, that the King would not grant Emancipation, and 



186 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

would not keep his word. But it is well known that the 
true reason why Pitt retired was that his Continental policy 
had failed. The people of England were tired of his wars, 
and were clamoring for peace. Pitt was too proud a man to 
sign even a temporar}^ peace with France ; and he retired in 
sullen pride and disgust. He retired under the pretext 
that he would not be allowed to carry Catholic Emancipa- 
tion. Some time later, after the Addington Administration 
was broken up, Mr. Pitt returned again, the second time, to 
be the Premier of England. Not one word escaped his lips 
about Catholic Emancipation ; and he resisted it until his 
death. He was as great an enemy to the Catholics of 
Ireland as ever poor, old, foolish, mad George the Third 
was. And it was only after twenty-nine years of heroic 
effort, that the great O'Connell rallied the Irish nation, and 
succeeded for a time in uniting all the Catholics of Ireland 
as one man, as well as a great number of our noble-hearted 
Protestant fellow-Irishmen. And when O'Connell came, 
and knocked at the doors of the British Parliament, with 
the hand of an united Irish people, — when he spoke with the 
voice of eight millions, — then, and only then — even as the 
walls of Jericho crumbled at the sound of Joshua's trumpet, 
— so did the old, bigoted threshold of the British House of 
Commons tremble, while its doors burst open and let in the 
gigantic Irishman that represented eight millions of the 
people of Ireland. The English historian cannot say that 
England granted Catholic Emancipation willingly. She 
granted it as a man would yield up a bad tooth to a dentist. 
O^Connell put the forceps into that false old mouth. The 
old tyrant wi'iggled and groaned. The bigoted j^roiligate 
who then disgraced England's crown, shed his crocodile 
tears over the bill. The eyes that were never known to 
weep over the ruin of female virtue, — the face that never was 
known to change color in the presence of any vile deed or 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 187 

accusation of vice, — that face gre\y pale ; and George tlie 
Fourth wept for sorrow when he had to sign the bilh The 
man who had conquered Napoleon upon the field of Water- 
loo ; the man who was declared to be the invincible victor, 
and the greatest of warriors, — stood there with that bill in 
his hand, and said to th3 King of England : ''I would not 
grant it, your Majesty, any more than you : but it is forced 
from you and me. You must either sign that paper, or pre- 
pare for civil war and revolution in Ireland." I regret to 
be obliged to say it, but really, my friends, the history of my 
native land proves to me that England never granted any- 
thing from love or through a sense of justice, or from any 
other motive than from a craven fear of civil war, or of 
some serious inconvenience to herself. 

Now, having arrived at this point, Mr. Froude glances, 
I must say in a magnificently masterly manner, over the 
great questions that have afiected Ireland since the day 
Emancipation was passed. He speaks words of most elo- 
quent compassion over the terrible visitation of '46 and '47, 
— words the reading of which brought tears to my eyes ; 
and for the words of compassion that he gave to the people 
whose sufferings I witnessed, I prayed to God to bless him 
and reward him. He speaks words of generous, enlightened, 
and statesmanlike sympathy with the tenant-farmers and the 
peasants of Ireland : and for these words, Mr. Froude, if you 
were an Englishman ten thousand times over, I love you. 
He does not attempt to speak of the future of Ireland. 
Perhaps it is a dangerous thing for me to attempt ; yet I 
suppose that all that we have been discussing in the past 
must have some reference to the future ; for surely the ver- 
dict that Mr. Froude looks for is not a mere verdict of abso- 
lution for past iniquities. He has come here, — though he is 
not a Catholic — he has come to America like a man going to 
confession. He has cried out loudly and generously, " We 



188 BNQLI8H MISRULE IN IRELAND, 

have sinned, we have sinned, we have grievously sinned ; " — 
and the verdict which he calls for must surely regard the 
future more than the past. For how, in the name of com- 
mon sense, can this great historian, or any man, ask for a 
verdict justifying the rule of iniquity, the heart-rending 
record of cruelty, injustice, fraud, robbery, bloodshed, and 
wrong which we have been contemplating in company wT.th 
Mr. Froude? It must be for the future. What is that 
future ? Well, my friends, — first of all my American grand 
jury, — you must remember that I am only a monk and not 
a man of the world ; I do not understand much about these 
things. There are wiser heads than mine ; and I will give 
you their opinions. There is one class of men who love 
Ireland — and I will only speak of those who love Ireland — 
who love her sincerely ; — there is one class of men who love 
Ireland, and who think, in their love for Ireland, that the 
future of Ireland is to be wrought out by insurjection, 
rising in arms against the power which holds Ireland en- 
slaved, if you will. Well, if the history which Mr. Froude 
has been just telling us, and which I have endeavored to 
review for you — if it teaches us anything as Irishmen, it 
teaches us that there is no use in appealing to the sword or 
to armed insurrection for Ireland. Mr. Froude says that we 
will only succeed when the Irish people have two things 
they do not seem to have now, namely, — imion as one man, 
and a determination not to sheath that sword until the work 
is done. I know that I would earn louder plaudits, citi- 
zens of America, and speak more popular language to the 
ears of my auditors, if I declared my adhesion to this class 
of Irishmen. But there is not living a man that loves Ire- 
land more dearly than I do. There are those who may love 
her more effectively and serve her with greater distinction — ■ 
but no man loves Ireland more tenderly and more sincerely 
than I do. I prize, citizens of America, the good- will of my 



THE FUTURE OF IBELANB, 189 

fellow-Irishmen; I prize it next to the grace of God. I 
also prize the popularity which, however unworthily, I pos- 
sess Y/ith them ; but T tell you American citizens, that for all 
that popularity, for ail that good- will, I would not compro- 
mise one iota of my convictions, nor would I state what I 
do not believe to be true. I do not believe in insurrection- 
ary movements in a country so divided as Ireland. 

There is another class of Irishmen who hold that Ireland 
has a future — a glorious future, — and that that future is to 
be wrought out in this way. They say, — and I think with 
justice and right — that wealth acquired by industry brings 
with it power and political influence. They say, therefore, 
to the Irish at home, ^' Try to accumulate wealth ; lay hold 
of the industries, and develop the resources of your country. 
Try, in the meantime, and labor to effect that blessed union 
without which there never can be a future for Ireland. 
That union can only be effected by largeness of mind, by 
generosity, and urbanity amongst fellow-citizens; by rising 
above the miserable bigotry that carries religious difi^erences 
and religious hatreds into the relations of life that do not 
belong to religion." Meantime, they say to the men of Ire- 
land, " Try and acquire property and wealth. This can 
only be done by developing assiduous industry ; and that 
industry can only be exercised as long as the country is at 
peace, and as long as there is a truce to violent political 
agitation." Then these men — I am giving the opinions of 
others, not my own — these men say to the Irishmen in 
America, — " Men of Ireland in America — men of Irish 
birth — men of American birth but of Irish blood — we believe 
that God has largely intrusted the destinies of Ireland to 
you. America demands of her citizens only energy, in- 
dustry, temj)erance, truthfulness, obedience to the laws ; and 
any man that has these, with tlie brains that God has given 
to every Irishman, is sure in this land to realize fortune and 



190 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

a grand future. If you are fbiithful to America in these 
respects, America will be faithful to you. And in propor- 
tion as the great Irish element in America rises in vvealth, 
it will rise in political influence and power — the political 
influence and power which in a few years is destined to 
overshadow the whole world, and to bring about, through 
peace and justice, far greater revolutions in the cause of 
honor and humanity than have ever been effected by the 
sword." This is the programme of the second class of Irish- 
men ; and I tell you candidly, that to this programme I 
give my heart and soul. 

You will ask me about separation from the crown of 
England. Well, that is a ticklish question, ladies and 
gentlemen. I dare say you remember that, when Charles 
Edward was Pretender to the Crown of England, during the 
first years of the House of Hanover, there was a toast which 
the Jacobite gentlemen used to give. It was this : — 

" God bless the King-, our noble faith's defender ; 
Long may he live ; and down with the Pretender. 
But which be the Pretender — which be King, — 
God bless us all, that's quite another thing." 

And yet, with the courage of an old monk, I will tell you 
my mind on this very question. History tells us that em- 
pires, like men, run the cycle of years of their life, and then 
die ; no matter how extended their power, no matter how 
mighty their influence, no matter how great their sway, how 
invincible their armies ; the day comes, the inevitable day, 
that brings with it decay and disruption. Thus it was with 
the empire of the Medes and Persians ; thus it was with the 
mighty empire of the Assyrians; thus with the Egyptians 
of old ; thus with the Greeks ; thus with Rome. Who would 
ever have imagined, for instance, 1,500 years ago — before 
the Goths first came to the v/alls of Rome — who would have 
imagined that the power that was to rule with undisputed 



THE FUTUBE OF IBELANI). 191 

sway over a territory greater than the whole Koman Empire, 
would be the little unknown island flung out in the Western 
Ocean, known only by having been conquered by the 
Komans, the ultima thule^ the tin island in the far ocean? 
And this was England. Who would have imagined that in 
the cycle of time this would come to pass ? Now, my 
friends, England has been a long time at the top of the 
wheel ; do you imagine she will always remain there ? I do 
not want to be one bit more loyal than Lord Macaulay : and 
Lord Macaulay describes the day " when the traveller from 
New Zealand shall take his stand upon the broken arch of 
London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Pa\d's." Is that 
wheel of England rising or falling ? Is England to-day what 
she was twenty years ago ? England, twenty years ago, in 
her first alliance with Napoleon, had a finger in every pie 
in Europe — and Lord John Kussell and Lord Palmerston 
were busy-bodies of the first order. England to-day has no 
more to say in the afiairs of Europe, than the Emperor of 
China has. You see I am only talking philosophy. A 
few months ago, the three great Emperors, — of Germany, 
Austria, and Russia, — came together in Berlin to fix the 
map of Europe; and they did not even pay the courtesy 
of asking England to come in, to know what she had to 
say about it. The army of England to-day is nothing, a 
mere cipher. The German Emperor can bring his 1,200,000 
men into the field; and England, for the very life of her, 
cannot put 200,000 men against him. An English citizen — 
a loyal Englishman — wrote a book called '' The Battle of 
Dorking," in which he describes a German army marching 
on London. The Englishman was loyal ; and why should I 
be more loyal than he? Of England's navy, Mr. Heade, 
Chief Constructor of the British navy, has written an article 
in a London paper, in which he declares and proves that, at 
this moment, the British fleet would be afraid to go into 



192 ENGLISH MISRULE IN IRELAND. 

Russian waters. They are not able to meet Russia. And 
why should I be more loyal than Mr. Reade ? An empire 
begins to totter and crumble to decay, when it withdraws its 
forces from its outlying provinces ; as, in the decay of Rome, 
the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain. England, 
to-day, says to Canada and Australia, " Oh, take your 
government into your own hands ; we don't want to be 
bothered with you any more ! " England, that, eighty years 
ago, fought for the United Colonies of America, as long as 
she could put a man into the field, has changed her policy. 
An empire is crumbling to decay when she begins to buy off 
her enemies, as in the case of the Roman Empire, when she 
began to buy off the Scytliians, the Dacians, and other bar- 
baric races, that were coming down upon her before her 
Empire fell. England, a few days ago, was presented with 
a little bill by America. She said, " Why, Jonathan, I owe 
you nothing ; " and John Bull buttoned up his pocket and 
swore he would not pay a cent. And then America said, 
'' Look here, John, if you don't, — look at this ! " — and she 
took the sword and held it by both hands : — '' whichever end 
you like." John Bull paid the bill. 

My friends, it looks very like as if the day of Lord Ma- 
' caulay's New Zealander was rapidly approaching. On that 
day, my opinion is, that Ireland will be mistress of her own 
destinies, with the liberty that will come to her, not from 
earth, but from that God whom she has never forsaken. 
And the whole question is, will Ireland, on that day, be wor- 
thy of the glorious destiny that is in the womb of time and 
the hand of God ? I say that Ireland will be worthy of it, 
if that day dawn upon a united people, upon a faithful peo- 
ple, upon a people that will keep, every man, his faith in God 
and in his holy religion, as his fathers before him kept it in 
the dark hour and in the terrible day of persecution. I say 
that Ireland will be worthy of her destiny, if on that day, 



THE FUTURE OF IRELAND. 193 

when it dawns upon lier, she will be fovmcl a,s distinctive, as 
individual a people and race, as she is to-day in her affliction 
and in her misery ; if she foster her traditions, if she keep up 
her high hopes, if she keep the tender, strong love that her 
people always have had for the Green Isle that bore them — 
then will Ireland be worthy of her destiny. What shall that 
destiny be? My friends, if Mr. Fronde has proved any- 
thing, I think he has proved this general proposition, that, 
although Almighty God lavished upon the English people 
many gifts, there is one gift he never gave them ; and that is 
the gift of knowing how to govern other people. To govern 
a people requires, first of all, strict justice ; and, secondly, to 
have the interests of the people at heart — their real interests ; 
and, thirdly, it requires tact and urbanity. The French have 
this, but the English have not. Look at Alsace and Lor- 
raine ; — look at the suffering people, the brave people, emi- 
grating like one man, attaching themselves to France, though 
she is down in the dust, rather than enter into rich and tri- 
umphant Germany. And why? Because France won theii* 
hearts by her justice, by her consulting their true interests, 
and by her French urbanity and tact. The history of the 
English Government's connection with Ireland is a history 
of injustice ; it is a history of heartlessness ; and it is, above 
all, a history of blundering want of tact : not knowing what 
to do with the people ; never understanding them ; knowing 
nothing at all of their genius, their prejudices, and the shape 
and form of their national character. 

But there is another nation that understands Ireland, and 
has proved that she understands Ireland ; whose statesmen 
have always spoken words of bright encouragement, of tender 
sympathy, and of manly hope to Ireland in her darkest 
days; and that nation is the United States of America; the 
mighty land, placed by the Omnipotent hand between the far 
East on the one side, to which she stretches out her glorious 
9 



19-i ENGLISH MISRULE IN lEELAND. 

arms, over the broad Pacific ; whilst, on the other, she sweeps 
with her left hand over the Atlantic, and touches Europe ; 
the mighty land, enclosing in her splendid bosom untold re- 
sources of every form of commercial and other wealth ; the 
mighty land, with room for three hundred millions of men ; 
with millions of the oppressed ones, all the world over, fly- 
ing to her more than imperial bosom, there to find liberty 
and the sacred rights of civil and religious freedom. Is there 
not ever^ reason to suppose that, in that future which we 
cannot see to-day, but which lies before us, — America will be 
to the whole world what Rome was in the ancient days, what 
England was but a few years ago, — the great storehouse of 
the w^orld, the great ruler, — the paciflc ruler, — of the desti- 
nies of the whole world : the great manufacturing pov^er, dis- 
pensing from out her mighty bosom all the necessaries and 
all the luxuries of life to the whole world around her ? — that 
she may be destined, — as I believe she is destined, — to rise 
rapidly into that gigantic form that will overshadow all other 
nations. When that glorious day comes to pass, what is more 
natural than that Ireland, now, as I suppose, mistress of her 
own destinies, should turn and stretch out the arms of her 
sympathy and love across the intervening waves of the At- 
lantic, and be received, an independent State, into the mighty 
confederation of America. America, — mark, I am not speak- 
ing treason — remember, I say distinctly, all this is to come 
to pass after Macaulay's New Zealander has arrived; — 
America will require an emporium for her European trade. 
Ireland lies there right between her and Europe, with her 
splendid coast line, and vast harbors and bays, able to shel- 
ter all her commercial and other fleets. America may re- 
quire a great European storehouse, a great European hive 
for her manufactures ; and Ireland has enormous water- 
power, now flowing idly to the sea, but which yet, in the fut- 
ure day, may be busy in turning the wheels set upon these 



THE FUTURE OF IBELAND, 195 

streams by American-Irish capital and Irish industry. If 
ever that day comes, if ever that union comes, it will be no 
degradation to Ireland to join hands with America, because 
America does not enslave her States ; she accepts them on 
terms of glorious equality : she" respects their rights, and 
blesses all who cast their lot with her. 

Now, I have done with this subject and with Mr. Froude, 
I have one word to say before I retire, and that is, if during 
the course of these fyve lectures one single word personally 
offensive to this distinguished gentleman has escaped my 
lips, I take that word back now ; I apologize to him before 
he asks me ; and I beg to assure him that such a word never 
came wilfully from my mind or from my heart. He says 
he loves Ireland ; and I believe according to his lights he 
does love Ireland ; but our lights are very different from his. 
Still the Almighty God will judge every man according to 
his lights. 



APPENDIX 



FA.I^T I. 

THE " BULL OF ADEIAK lY." 

THE GREAT NORMAN FORGERY. 

^hat Dr. Theiner said ofit^ and Froude suppressed. 

[The annexed review of the controversy on the so-called ' ' Bull " 
of Pope Adrian lY. , ipurporting to cede Ireland to Henry II. , was 
contributed to the ^^ Irish Ecclesiastical Record'''' for Kovember, 
1872, by the Most Rev. P. H. Moran, Bishop of Ossory.] 

There was a time when it would be little less than trea- 
son to question the genuineness of the Bull by which Pope 
Adrian lY. is supposed to have made a grant of Ireland to 
Henry the Second ; and, indeed, from the first half of the 
thirteenth to the close of the fifteenth century, it was prin- 
cipally through this supposed grant of the Holy See that the 
English Government sought to justify their claim to hold 
dominion in our island. However, opinions and times have 
changed, and at the present day this Bull of Adrian has as 
little bearing on the connection between England and this 
country as it could possibly have on the union of the Isle of 
Man with Great Britain. 



APPENDIX. 197 

On the other hand, many strange things ha.ve been said 
during the past months in the so-called Nationalist jour- 
nals, whilst asserting the genuineness of this famous Bull. 
I need scarcely remark that it does not seem to have been 
the love either of our poor country or of historic truth that 
inspired their declamation. It proceeded mainly from their 
hatred to the Sovereign Pontiff, and from the vain hope that 
such exaggerated statements might in some way weaken the 
devoted affection of our people for E,ome. 

Laying aside such prejudiced opinions, the controversy as 
to the genuineness of Adrian's Bull should be viewed in a 
purely historical light, and its decision must depend on the 
value and weight of the historical arguments which may be 
advanced to sustain it. The following is a literal transla- 
tion of the old Latin text of Adrian's Bull : — 

'^ Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our 
most dear Son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, 
greeting and the Apostolical Benediction. 

'' The thoughts of your Highness are laudably and profit- 
ably directed to the greater glory of your name on earth and 
to the increase of the reward of eternal happiness in heaven, 
when as a Catholic Prince you propose to yourself to extend 
the borders of the Church, to announce the truths of Chris- 
tian Faith to ignorant and barbarous nations, and to root 
out the weeds of wickedness from the field of the Lord ; and 
the more effectually to accomplish this, you implore the 
counsel and favor of the Apostolic See. In which matter 
we feel assured that the higher your aims ar^ and the more 
discreet your proceedings, the happier, with God's aid, will 
be the result ; because those undertakings that proceed from 
the ardor of faith and the love of religion are sure always to 
have a prosperous end and issue. 

" It is beyond all doubt, as your Highness also doth ac- 
knowledge, that Ireland, and all the islands upon which 
Christ the Sun of Justice has shone, and which have re- 
ceived the knowledge of the Christian faith, are subject to 
the authority of St. Peter and of the most Holy Boman 



198 APPENDIX. 

Church. "Wlierefore we are the more desirous to sow in 
them an acceptable seed and a plantation pleasing unto God, 
because we know that a most rigorous account of them shall 
be required of us hereafter. 

^' Now, most dear Son in Christ, you have signified to us 
that you propose to enter the island of Ireland to establish 
the observance of law amongst its people, and to eradicate 
the weeds of vice ; and that you are willing to pay from 
every house one penny as an annual tribute to St. Peter, and 
to preserve the rights of the Church of that land whole and 
inviolate. We, therefore, receiving with due favor your 
pious and laudable desires, and graciously granting our con- 
sent to your petition, declare that it is pleasing and accept- 
able to us, that for the purpose of enlarging the limits of the 
Church, setting bounds to the torrent of vice, reforming 
evil manners, planting the seeds of virtue, and increasing 
Christian faith, you should enter that island and carry into 
effect those things which belong to the service of God and to 
the salvation of that people ; and that the people of that 
land should honorably receive and reverence you as Lord; 
the rights of the churches being preserved untouched and 
entire, and reserving the annual tribute of one penny from 
every house to St. Peter and the most Holy Poman Church. 

" If, therefore, you resolve to carry these designs into ex- 
ecution, let it be your study to form that people to good 
morals, and take such order both by yourself and by those 
whom you shall find qualified in faith, in words, and in con- 
duct, that the Church there may be adorned, and the prac- 
tices of Christian faith be planted and increased ; and let all 
that tends to the glory of God and the salvation of souls be 
so ordered by you that you may deserve to obtain from God 
an increase of everlasting reward, and may secure on earth 
a glorious name throughout all time. Given at Pome," etc. 

Before we proceed with the inquiry as to the genuineness 
of this letter of Pope Adrian, I must detain the reader with 
a few brief preliminary remarks. 

First : Some passages of this important document have 
been very unfairly dealt with by modern writers while pur- 
porting to discuss its merits. Thus, for instance, Professor 



APPENDIX. 199 

Ricliey, in his '' Lectures on Irish Plistor}^," presenting a trans- 
lation of the Latin text to the lady pupils of the Alexandra 
College, makes the Pontiff to write: 

" You have signified to us, our well-beloved son in Christ, 
that you propose to enter the island of Ireland in order to 
subdue the people^ etc. . . . We, therefore, regarding 
your pious and laudable design with due favor, etc., do here- 
by declare our will and pleasure, that for the purpose of en- 
larging the borders of the Church, etc., you do enter and 
take possession of that island,'''^ 

Such an erroneous translation must be the more blamed 
in the present instance, as it was scarcely to be expected 
that the ladies whom the learned lecturer addressed would 
have leisure to consult the original Latin text of the docu- 
ment which he professed to translate. This, however, is not 
the only error into which Professor Pichey has been be- 
trayed I'egarding the Bull of Adrian lY. Having mentioned 
in a note the statement of Poger de Wendover, that the 
Bull was obtained from Pope Adrian in the year 1155, he 
adds his o\m\ opinion that ^Hhe grant appears to have been 
made in 1172." Hov/ever, at that date, Pope Adrian had 
been for about thirteen years freed from the cares of his 
Pontificate, having passed to a better world in the year 
1159. 

Second: Any one who attentively weighs the words of 
the above document vv^ill see at once that it prescinds from 
all title of conquest, Vvdiilst at the same time it makes no 
gift or transfer of dominion to Henry the Second. As far 
as this letter of Adrian is concerned, the visit of Plenry to 
our island might be the enterprise of a friendly monarch, 
who, at the invitation of a distracted state, would seek by 
his presence to restore peace and to uphold the observance 
of the laws. Thus, those foolish theories must at once be 
set aside, which rest on the groundless supposition that Pope 



200 APPENDIX. 

Adrian authorized the invasion and plunder of our people bj 
the Anglo-Norman adventurers. 

Third : There is another serious error which must also 
be set at rest by the simple perusal of the above document. 
I niean that opinion v/hich would fain set forth the letter of 
Pope Adrian as a dogmatical definition of the Holy See, as 
if the Sovereign Pontiff then spoke ex cathedra^ ^.e., solemnly 
propounded some doctrine to be believed by the Universai 
Church. ■ Now it is manifest from the letter itself that it 
has none of the conditions required for a definition ex 
cathedra : it is not addressed to the Universal Church ; it 
proposes no matter of faith to be held by all the children of 
Christ ; in fact, it presents no doctrine whatever to be be- 
lieved by the faithful, and it is nothing more than a com- 
mendatory letter addressed to tienry, resting on the good 
intentions set forth by that monarch himself. There is one 
maxim, indeed, which av/akens the suspicions of the old Galil- 
ean school, viz., that "all the islands are subject to the au- 
thority of St. Peter." However, it is no doctrinal teaching 
that is thus propounded ; it is a matter of fact admitted by 
Henry himself, a princijDle recognized by the international 
law of Europe in the middle ages, a maxim set down by the 
various states themselves, the better to maintain peace and 
concord among the princes of Christendom. To admit, how- 
ever, or to call in question the teaching of the civil law of 
Europe, as embodied in that maxim, has nothing whatever 
to say to the great prerogative of St. Peter's successors, 
whilst they solemnly propound to the faithful, in unerring 
accents, the doctrines of Divine faith. 

Fourth : To many it will seem a paradox, and yet it is a 
fact, that the supposed Bull of Pope Adrian had no part 
whatever in the submission of the Irish Chieftains to Henry 
the Second. Even according to those who maintain its gen- 
uineness, this Bull was not published till the year 1175, and 



APPEISBIX. 201 

certainly no mention of it was maxie in Ireland till long 
after the submission of the Irish Princes. The success of 
the Anglo-Normans was mainly due to a far difierent cause, 
viz., to the superior military skill and equipment of the in- 
vaders. Among the Anglo-Norman leaders were some of 
the bravest knights of the kingdom, who had v/on their lau- 
rels in the wars of France and Wales. Their weapons and 
armor rendered it almost impossible for the Irish troops to 
meet them in the open field. The cross-bow, which was 
made use of for the first time in this invasion, jiroduced as 
great a change in military tactics as the rifled cannon in our 
own days. When Henry came in person to Ireland his nu- 
merous army hushed all opposition. There were 400 vessels 
in his fleet, and if a minimum of twenty-five armed men be 
allowed for each vessel, we will have an army of at least 
10,000 men fully equipped, landing unopposed, on the south- 
ern shores of our island. It is to this imposing force, and 
the armor of the Anglo-Norman knights, that we must in 
great part refer whatever success attended this invasion of 
the English monarch. 

To proceed now with the immediate matter of our present 
historical inquiry, the following is the summary of the argu- 
ments in favor of the authenticity of Pope Adrian's letter, 
inserted in the Irishman newspaper of June the 8th last, by 
J. C. O'Callaghan, Esq., editor of the '' Macarise Excidium," 
and author of many valuable works on Irish history : 

" We have, firstly, the testimony of John of Salisbury, 
secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and one of the 
ablest writers of his day, who relates his having been the 
envoy from Henry to Adrian, in 1155, to ask for a grant of 
Ireland, and such a grant having then been obtained, accom- 
panied by a gold ring, containing a fine emerald, as a token 
. of investiture, with which grant and ring the said John re- 
turned to Henry. We have, secondly, the grant or Bull of 
Adrian, in extenso, in the works of Giraldus Cambrensis and 
9* 



202 APPENDIX. 

Lis contemporary, Kadiilfus de Diceto, Dean of London, as 
well as in those of Roger de Wendover and Matthew Paris. 
We have, thirdly, several Bulls of Adrian's successor. Pope 
Alexander III., still further to the purport of Adrian's, or 
in Henry's favor. We have, fourthly, the recorded public 
reading of the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander, at a meeting 
of Bishops in Yv^aterford, in 1175. We have, fifthly,' after 
the liberation of Scotland from England, at Bannockburn, 
and the consequent invitation of Bruce's brother, Edward, 
to be King of Ireland, the Bull of Adrian prefixed to the 
eloquent letter of remonstrance, which the Irish presented to 
Pope Johii XXIL, against the English ; the same Bull, 
moreover, referred to in the remonstrance itself, as so ruin- 
ous to Ireland ; and a copy of that Bull, accordingly, sent 
back by the Pope to Edward II. of England, for his use un- 
der those circumstances. We have,- sixthly, from Cardinal 
Baronius, in his great work, the ' Annales Ecclesiastici,' un- 
der Adrian IV., his grant of Ireland to his countryman, in 
full, or, as is said, ' ex codice Yaticano diploma datum ad 
Henricum, Anglorum Begem.' We have, seventhly, the 
Bull in the Bullarium Bomanum, as printed at Pome in 1739. 
The citations and references in support of all the foregoing 
statements will be found in the ' Notes and Illustrations ' of 
my edition of ' ]Macari?e Excidium ' for the Irish Archeeolog- 
ical Society in 1850, given in such a manner as must satisfy 
the most sceptical." 

Examining these arguments in detail, I will follow the 
order thus marked out by Mr. O'Callaghan. 

1. — We meet, in the first place, the testimony of John of 
Salisbury, who, in his '' 3Ietalogicus'^'' (lib. iv., cap. 42), 
writes, that being in an official capacity at the Papal court, 
in 1155, Pope Adrian lY. then granted the investiture of 
Ireland to the illustrious King Henry II. of England. 

I do not wish in any way to detract from the praise due 
to John of Salisbury, who was at this time one of the ablest 
courtiers of Henry II. However, the words here imputed 
to him must be taken with great reserve. Inserted as they 
are in the last chapter of his work, they are not at all re- 



APFEIiDIX. 203 

quired by the context : by cancelling them the whole pas- 
sage runs smoother, and is more connected in every way. 
This is the more striking, as in another w^ork of the same 
writer, which is entitled " Polycraticusj^'^ we meet with a de- 
tailed account of the various incidents of his embassy to 
Pope Adrian, yet he there makes no mention of the Bull in 
Henry's favor, or of the gold ring and its ^tiq emerald, or 
of the grant of Ireland, all of which would have been so im- 
portant for his narrative. 

We must also hold in mind the time when the " Meta- 
logicus " was written. The author himself fixes its date ; 
for, immediately before asking the prayers of " those who 
read his book, and those who hear it read," he tells us that 
the nev/s of Pope Adrian's death had reached him a little 
time before, and he adds that his ov/n patron, Theobald, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, though still living, was weighed 
down by many infirmities. Now, Pope Adrian departed 
this life in 1159, and the death of Archbishop Theobald hap- 
pened in 1161. Hence, Gale and the other editors of John 
of Salisbury's works, without a dissentient voice, refer the 
'' Metalogicus'''' to the year 1159. 

Now, it is a matter beyond the reach of controversy, that 
if Henry the Second obtained the investiture of Iieland 
from Adrian lY., he kept this grant a strict secret till at 
least the year 1175. For twenty years, i.e., from 1155 to 
1 175, no mention was made of the gift of Adrian. Henry did 
not refer to it when authorizing his vassals to join Diarmaid, 
in 1167, when Adrian's Bull would have been so opportune to 
justify his intervention ; he did not mention it when he him- 
self set out for Ireland to solicit and receive the homage of 
the Irish Princes ; he did not even refer to it when he as- 
sumed his new title and accomplished the purpose of his 
expedition. The Council of Cashel, in 1172, was the fi.rst 
episcopal assembly after Henry's arrival in Ireland; the 



204 APPENDIX. 

Papal Legate was present there, and did Adrian's Bull exist, 
it slionld necessarily have engaged the attention of the as- 
sembled Fathers. Nevertheless, not a whisper as to Adrian's 
grant was to be heard at that famous Council. Even the 
learned editor of " Canibrensis Eversus^'' whilst warmly as- 
serting the genuineness of Adrian's Bull, admits " there is 
not any, even the slightest, authority, for asserting that its 
existence was known in Ireland before the year 1172, or for 
three years later " — (vol. ii., p. 440, note z.) It is extremely 
difficult, in any hypothesis, to explain in a satisfactory way 
this mysterious silence of Henry the Second, nor is it easy to 
understand hovv^ a fact so important, so vital to the interests 
of Ireland, could remain so many years concealed from those 
who ruled the destinies of the Irish Church. For, we must 
hold in mind, that throughout that interval Ireland num- 
bered among its Bishops one who held the important office 
of Legate of the Holy See ; our Church had constant inter- 
course with England and the Continent, and, through St. 
Laurence O'Toole and a hundred other distinguished prelates, 
enjoyed in the fullest manner the confidence of E-ome. 

If Adrian granted this Bull to Henry at the solicitation of 
John of Salisbury, in 1155, there is but one explanation for 
the silence of this courtier in his diary, as set forth in the 
'^ Polycraticus^'' and for the concealment of the Bull itself 
from the Irish bishops and people, viz., that this secresy 
was required by the state policy of the English monarch. 
And, if it be so, hovf then can we be asked to admit as genu- 
ine this passage of the ^^ Metalogicus^'' in which the astute 
agent of Henry, still continuing to discharge offices of the 
highest trust in the court, would proclaim to the world as 
early as the year 1159, that Pope Adrian had made this for- 
mal grajat of Ireland to his royal master, and that the sol- 
emn record of the investiture of this high dignity was pre- 
served in the public archives of the kingdom ? 



APPENDIX. 205 

It must also be added, that there are soiaie phrases in this 
passage of the '^ Metalogicus'''* which manifestly betray the 
hand of the. impostor. Thus, the words, '' usque in 'hodier- 
num diem^'^ imply that a long interval had elapsed since the 
concession was made by Pope Adrian, and surely they could 
not have been penned by John of Salisbury, in 1159. Much 
less can we suppose that this writer employed the words 
^^ jure hcjereditario possidendam,'^'^ No such hereditary right 
is granted in the Bull of Adrian. It was not dreamt of even 
during the first years of the Anglo-Norman invasion, and it 
was only at a later period, when the Irish Chieftains scorn- 
fully rejected the Anglo-Norman law of hereditary succes- 
sion, that this expedient was thought of for allaying the iierce 
opposition of our people. 

Thus we are forced to regard the supposed testimony of 
John of Salisbury as nothing more than a clumsy interpola- 
tion, which probably was not inserted in his work till many 
years after the first Anglo-Norman invasion of our island. 

2. — I now come to the second and main argument of those 
who seek to defend the authenticity of Pope Adrian's Bull. 
We have Giraldus Camhrensis, they say, a contemporary 
witness, whose testimony is unquestionable. He inserts in 
full this letter of Adrian lY., and he nowhere betrays the 
slightest doubt in regard to its genuineness. 

Some years ago, we might perhaps have accepted that flat- 
tering character of Giraldus Cambrensis, but at the present 
day, and since the publication of an accurate edition of his 
historical works, it is impossible for us to do so. 

It was not till many years after the death of Pope Adrian 
that Gerald de Barry, better known by the name of Giral- 
dus Cambrensis, entered on the stage of Irish history. 
Tvv^ice he visited Ireland after the year 1183, and on both 
occasions he discharged those duties which, at the present 



90G APPENDIX, 

day, would inerit ibr him tlie title of special court correspond- 
ent with the invading army. The Expugnatio Hibernica^ 
in which he inserts Adrian's Bull, may justly be said to have 
been Vv^-itten to order. Hence, as a matter of course, Giral- 
dus adopted in it as genuine every document set forth as such 
by his royal master, and any statements that strengthened 
the claim or promoted the interests of his brother Welsh 
adventurers were sure not to be too nicely weighed in the 
scales of criticism by such a historian. The editors of the 
works of Giraidus, just nov/ published under the direction 
of the Master of the Rolls, have fully recognized this special 
feature of the historical writincis of Giraidus. The official 
catalogue describing the " Expugnatio liihernica^'* of which 
we treat, expressly says : 

'' It may be regarded rather as a great epic, than a sober 
relation of facts occurring in his ov/n days. No one can 
peruse it without coming to the conclusion that it is rather 
a poetical fiction than a prosaic, truthful history." 

In the preface to the fifth volume of the '' Historical Trea- 
tises of Giraidus," the learned editor, Hev. James F. Dimock, 
enters at considerable length into the inquiry, whether the 
Expugnatio Uihernica was to be accepted as genuine and 
authentic history. I need do no more than state the con- 
clusions which he enunciates : — 

" I think I have said enough to justify me in refusing to 
accept Giraldus's history of the Irish and of their English 
invaders as sober, truthful history." 

And again he writes : ^' My good friend and pre-laborer 
in editing these volumes of Giraldus's work " (Mr. Brewer) 
'' says of the ' Expjugnatio^ that Giraidus would seem to 
have regarded his subject rather as a great epic, which un- 
doubtedly it was, than a sober relation of facts occurring in 
his own days. . . . This is a most true and characteris- 
tic description of Gii'aldus's treatment of his subject: the 
treatise certainly is, in great measure, rather a poetical fic- 
tion than a prosaic, truthful history." 



APPENDIX, 207 

I must further remark as another result from Rev. Mr. 
Dimock's researches, that the old text of Giraldus in refer- 
ence to Pope Adrian's Bull, from which Mr. O'Callaghan's 
citations are now made, is now proved to be singularly de- 
fective. I will give the pithy words of that learned editor, 
which are stronger than any I would wish to use : — 

''No more absurd or nonsensical muddle was ever blun- 
dered into by the most stujnd of abbreviators,'''' 

It is of course from the ancient MSS. of the work that 
this corruption of the old text is mainly proved; but it 
should indeed ba apparent from an attentive study of the 
very printed text* itself ; for, as Mr. Dimock remarks, being 
accurately translated, its words " marvellously contrive to 
make Henry, in 1172, apply for and procure this privilege 
from Pope Adrian, who died in 1159 ! And with equally 
marvellous confusion they represent John of Salisbury, who 
had been Henry's agent in procuring this privilege in 
1155j as sent, not to Ireland, but to Pome, for the purpose 
of publishing the Bull at Waterford, in 1174 or 1175 ! " 

I will only add, regarding the testimony of Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, that in the genuine text of the '' Expugnatio Hiber- 
■nica " he places on the same level the Bull of Adrian IV. 
and that of Alexander III. Nevertheless, as we w^ill just 
now see, he elsewhere admits that there were many and grave 
suspicions that the supposed Bull of Alexander had never 
been granted by the Holy See. 

The other names mentioned together with Giraldus will 
not detain us long. They are all writers who only incident- 
ally make reference to Irish matters, and in these they 
naturally enough take Giraldus for their guide. 

Palph de Diceto wrote about 1210, and like Giraldus re- 
ceived his honors at the hands of Henry the Second. Irish 
historians have not yet accepted him as a guide in reference 



208 APPEJSIDIX, 

to matters connected with ovir country. For instance, the 
Synod of Cashel, of 1172, which was one of the most impor- 
tant events of that period of our history, is described by him 
as held in Lismore. 

Roger de Wendover was a monk of St. Albans, who died 
6th of May, 1237. His " Flores IlistoriaruTn'*'' begins with 
the creation of the world, and ends two years before his 
death in 1235. He merely compendiates other sources 
down to the beginning of the thirteenth century. It is only 
the subsequent portion of his work which is held in esteem 
by our annalists. 

Matthew Paris was a brother religious of Roger de AYen- 
dover, in St. Albans, where he died in 1259. Mr. Coxe, 
who edited a portion of the " Flores Historiarum " for the 
English Historical Society (1841-1844), has proved that, 
down to the year 1235, Matthew Paris only compendiates 
the work of Wendover. At all events his '' Ilistoria Major'^'^ 
is of very little weight. A distinguished German historian 
of the present day, Schrodl, thus conveys his strictures on 
its merits : — 

*' Se trompe a chaque instant, et, entrainepar son aveugle 
rage de critique, donne pour des faits historiques des anec- 
dotes piquantes qui n'ont aucune authenticite, des legendes 
deraisonnabies et toutes sortes des details suspects, exageres 
et calomnieux." 

To the testimony of such writers v/e may well oppose the 
silence of Peter de Blois, secretary of Henry tlie Second, 
though chronicling the chief events of Henry's reign, and 
the silence of all our native annalists, not one of whom ever 
mentions the Bull of Adrian. 

3. — But it is time to pass on to the third argument 'which 
is advanced by our oj^ponents. It is quite true that we 
have some letters or Bulls of Pope Alexander III. connected 
with the Irish invasion. Three of these, written in 1172, 



APPENDIX, 209 

are certainly authentic. They are preserved in the " Liber 
Niger Scaccarii^"^ from which they were edited by Ilearne, 
and in later times they have been accurately printed by Mr. 
O'Cailaghan and E.ev. Dr. Kelly. They are addressed re- 
spectively to the Irish bishops, King Henry, and the Irish 
Princes. So far, however, are these letters from corroborat- 
ing the genuineness of Pope Adrian's Bull, that they fur- 
nish an unanswerable argument for wholly setting it aside as 
groundless and unauthentic. They are entirely devoted to 
the circumstances of the invasion of our island and its 
results, and yet the only title that they recognize in Henry 
is '' that monarch's power, and the submission of the Irish 
Chieftains." They simply ignore any Bull of Adrian, and 
any investiture from the Holy See. 

There is however another Bull of Alexander III., pre- 
served by Giraldus Cambrensis, which is supposed to have 
been granted at the request of King Henry, in 1172, and is 
confirmatoiy of the gift and investure made by Pope Adrian : 
and Mr. O'Callaghan holds that this Bull of Alexander 
III, sets at rest forever all doubt as to the genuineness of 
the grant made by Adrian IV. 

The question at once suggests itself: — Is this Bull of 
Alexander III. to be itself admitted as genuine and authen- 
tic? If its own authority be doubtful, surely it cannot 
suffice to prop up the tottering cause of Adrian's Bull. Now 
its style is entirely different from that of the three authentic 
letters of which we have just spoken. Quite in opposition 
to these letters, " the only authority alleged in it for 
Henry's right to Ireland is the Bull of Adrian," as Dr. 
Lanigan allows. The genuine letters are dated from Tus- 
culum, whe];e, as we know from other sources, Alexander 
actually resided in 1172. On the other hand, this confirma- 
tory Bull, though supposed to have been obtained in 1172, is 
dated from Rome, thus clearly betraying the hand of the 



210 APPENDIX. 

impostor. Such v/as the disturbed condition of Kome at 
that period that it was impossible for His Holiness to reside 
there, and hence we find him sometimes holding his Court in 
Tusculum, at other times in Segni, Anagni, or Ferrara. It 
was only when these disturbances were quelled that Alexan- 
der III. was able, in 1178, to return in triumph to his capital. 
But there is still another reason why we must doubt of 
the authority of this confirmatory Bull. The researches of 
Bev. ]Mr. Dimock have proved that Ussher long ago re- 
marked, that this Bull of Alexander originally formed part 
of ^he work of Giraldus Cambrensis, altliough later copyists, 
and the first editors, including the learned Camden, recog-* 
nizing its spuriousness, excluded it from Giraldus's text. 
The matter is now set at rest, for the ancient M3S. clearly 
prove that it originally formed part of the " Expugnatio 
HihernicaP Thanks, however, to the zeal ?.nd industry of 
Mr. Brewer, we are at present acqua,inted with another 
work of Giraldus, written at a later period than his His- 
torical Tracts on Ireland. It is entitled '^ De Princijyiis 
Instructionis,^'' and was edited in 1846, for the " Anglia 
Christiana " Society. Now, in this treatise Giraldus refers 
to the Bull of Alexander III., of v/hicli we treat, but he pre- 
fixes the following remarkable words : — 

^' Some assert or imagine that this JBull was obtained froyn 
the JPope : hut others deny that it -was ever obtained from the 
PontijfP " Sicut a quibusdam impetratum assertitur aut 
confingitur ; ab aliis autem usquam impetratum fuisse nega- 
tur." 

Surely these words should suffice to convince the most 
sceptical that the fact of the Bull of Alexander being re- 
cited by Giraldus, in his " Expugnatio Ilibernica^'' is a 
very unsatisfactory ground on which to rest thfe arguments 
for its genuineness. 

4. — As regards the Synod of Waterford, in 1175^ and the 



APPENDIX, 211 

statement tha.t the Bulls of Adrian and Alexander were 
published therein for the first time, all these matters rest on 
the very doubtful authority of Giraldus Cambrensis. We 
have no record in the Irish Annals that any general meet- 
ing of the Irish Bishops was held in Waterford in 1175. 
The circumstances of the country rendered such a Synod im- 
possible ; for war and dissensions raged throughout the 
length and breadth of oar island. It was in that year, how- 
ever, that the first Bishop was appointed by King Henry, 
to the See of Waterford, as Ware informs us ; and, perhaps, 
we would not err were we to suppose that the Synod so 
pompously set forth by Giraldus, was a convention of the 
Anglo-Norman clergy of Waterford, under their newly 
appointed Prelate, all of whom would, no doubt, joyfully 
accept the ofiicial documents presented in the name of tlie 
King, by Nicholas of Wallingford. 

Leland supposes that this Synod of Waterford was not 
held till 1177. The disturbed state of the kingdom, how- 
ever, rendered a Synod equally impossible in that year, and 
all our a^ncient authorities utterly ignore such a Synod. 

5. — In the ^^ Kemonstrance " addressed by the Irish 
Princes and people to John XXII., about the year 1315, 
repeated mention is made of the Bull of Adrian. But then 
it is only cited there as a conclusive argument ad honiinem^ 
against the English traducers of our nation, '' lest the bitter 
and venomous calumnies of the English, and their unjust, 
and unfounded attacks upon us and all who support our 
rights, may in any degree influence the mind of your Holi- 
ness." The Bull of Adrian lY. was published by the Eng- 
lish, and set forth by them as the charter-deed of their 
rule in Ireland ; yet they violated in a most flagrant manner 
all the conditions of that Papal grant. The Irish Princes 
and people, in self-defence, had now made over the sovereignty 



212 APPENDIX. 

of the island to Edward de Bruce, brother of the Scottish 
King ; they style him their adopted monarch, and they pray 
the Pope to give a formal sanction to their proceedings. 
Thus, throughout the whole Remonstrance, the Bull of 
Adrian is used as a telling argument against the injustice of 
the invaders, and as a precedent w^hich John XXII. might 
justly follow in sanctioning the transfer of the Irish crov/n 
to Edward Bruce. But in all this the historian will find no 
grounds for asserting the genuineness of the supposed Bulls 
of Adrian or Alexander. We will just now see that at this 
very time the Irish people universally regarded these Bulls 
as spurious inventions of their English enemies. 

6. — Baronius, the eminent ecclesiastical historian, inserts 
in his invaluable Annals the Bull of Adrian lY., " from a 
Vatican Manuscript." This is the sixth argument advanced 
by Mr. O'Callaghan. 

It is not my intention to question in any way the services 
rendered by Cardinal Baronius to the cause of our Church 
History ; but at the same time no one will deny that con- 
siderable progress has been made in historical research dur- 
ing the past three hundred and fifty years, and many docu- 
ments are now set aside which were then accepted as un- 
questioned on the supposed reliable authority of preceding 
chroniclers. 

In the present instance we are not left in doubt as to the 
source whence Baronius derived his information regarding 
Adrian's supposed Bull. During my stay in Bome I took 
occasion to inquire whether the MSS. of the eminent annal- 
ist, which are happily preserved, indicated the special " Vat- 
ican Manuscript " referred to in his printed text ; and I 
was informed by the learned archivist of the Vatican, Mon- 
signor Theiner, who is at present engaged in giving a new 
edition, and continuing the great work of Baronius, that the 



APPENDIX. 213 

Codex Vaticanus referred to is a MS. copy of the History 
of Matthew Paris, which is preserved in the Vatican Li- 
brary. Thus it is the testimony of Matthew Paris alone 
that here confronts us in the pages of Baronius, and no new 
argument can be taken from the words of the eminent an- 
nalist. Relying on the same high authority, I am happy to 
state that nowhere in the private archives, or among the 
private papers of the Vatican, or in the " Hegestaj'^ which 
Jaffe's researches have made so famous, or in the various 
indices of the Pontifical Letters, can a single trace be found 
of the supposed Bulls of Adrian IV. and Alexander III. 

7. — The last argument advanced by Mr. O'Callaghan will 
not detain us long. The insertion or omission of such 
ancient records in the Bullarium, is a matter that depends 
wholly on the critical skill of the editor. Curious enough, 
in one edition of the Bullarium, as may be seen in the ref- 
erences of Dr. Lanigan, Adrian's Bull is inserted, whilst no 
mention is made of that of Alexander ; in another edition, 
however, the Bull of Alexander is given in full, whilst the 
Bull of Adrian is omitted. We may well leave our oppo- 
nents to settle this matter with the conflicting editors of the 
Bullarium. They, probably like Baronius, merely copied 
the Bull of Adrian from Matthew Paris, and erred in doing 
so. Labbe, in his magnificent edition of the Councils, also 
publishes Adrian's Bull, but then he expressly tells us that 
it is copied from the work of Matthew Paris. 

We have thus, as far as the limits of this article will 
allow, examined in detail the various arguments which sup- 
port the genuineness of the supposed Bull, and now it only 
remains for us to conclude that there are no sufficient 
grounds for accepting that document as the genuine work of 
Pope Adrian. 

Indeed, the Irish nation at all times, as if instinctively, 



214 APPENDIX. 

slirimk from accepting it as genuine, and unhesitatingly 
pronounced it an Anglo-Norman forgery. We have already 
seen how even Giraldus Cambrensis refers to the doubts 
which had arisen regarding the Bull of Pope Alexander ; 
but we have at hand still more conclusive evidence that 
Adrian's Bull was universally rejected by our people. 
There is, happily, preserved in the Barberini Archives, 
Borne, a MS. of the fourteenth century, containing a series 
of official papers connected with the Pontificate of John 
XXII., and amongst them is a letter from the Lord Justici- 
ary and the Boyal Council of Ireland, forwarded to Bome 
under the Boyal Seal, and presented to His Holiness by 
William of Nottingham, Canon and Precentor of St. Pat- 
rick's Cathedral, Dublin, about the year 1325. In this 
important, but hitherto unnoticed document, the Irish are 
accused of very many crimes, among which is insidiously 
introduced the rejection of the supposed Bulls : 

"Moreover^ they assert that the King of England^ under 
false pretences and hy false Sulls^ obtained the dominion of 
Ireland^ and this opinion is commonly held by themnP 
'' Asserentes etiam Dominum Begem Anglisa ex falsa sug- 
gestione et ex faisis Bullis terram Hibernise in dominium 
impetrasse ac communiter hoc tenentes." 

This national tradition was preserved unbroken through- 
out the turmoil of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and 
on the revival of our historical literature in the beginning 
of the seventeenth century, was registered in the pages of 
Lynch, Stephen White, and other writers. 

It will be well also, whilst forming our judgment regard- 
ing this supposed Bull of Adrian, to hold in mind the dis- 
turbed state of society, especially in Italy, at the time to 
which it refers. At the present day it would be no easy 
matter indeed for such a forgery to survive more than a few 
weeks. But at the close of the twelfth century it was far 



APPENDIX. 215 

otherwise. Owing to the constant revolutions and disturb- 
ances that then prevailed, the Pontiff was oftentimes obliged 
to fly from city to city ; frequently his papers w^ere seized 
and burned, and he himself detained as a hostage or prisoner 
by his enemies. Hence it is that several forged Bulls, ex- 
amples of which are given in " Camhrensis Eversus^'* date 
from these times. More than one of the grants made to the 
Norman families are now believed to rest on such forgeries ; 
and that the Anglo-Norman adventurers in Ireland were not 
strangers to such deeds of darkness, appears from the fact 
thai a matrix for forging the Papal Seal of such Bulls, now 
preserved in the B. I. Academy, was found a few years ago 
in the ruins of one of the earliest Anglo-Norman monasteries 
founded by De Courcy. 

The circumstances of the publication of the Bull by Henry 
were surely not calculated to disarm suspicion. Our oppo- 
nents do not even pretend that it was made known in Ireland 
till the year 1175, and hence, though publicly granted with 
solemn investiture, as John of Salisbury's testimony would 
imply, and though its record was deposited in the public 
archives of the kingdom, this Bull, so vital to the interests 
of the Irish Church, should have remained dormant for 
twenty years, unnoticed in Bome, unnoticed by Henry's 
courtiers, still more, unnoticed by the Irish Bishops, and I 
will add, unnoticed by the Continental Sovereigns so jealous 
of the power and preponderance of the English Monarch. 
For such suppositions there is indeed no parallel in the 
whole history of investitures. 

It is seldom, too, tliat the hand of the impostor may not 
be detected in some at least of the minor details of the spu- 
rious document. In the present instance more than one 
ancient MS. preserves the concluding formula of the Bull : 
" Datum Bomaj," dated from Home, Now this simple 
formula would suffice of itself to prove the whole Bull to be 



216 APPENDIX. 

a forgeiy. Before the news of the election of Pope Adrian 
to the Chair of St. Peter could reach England, that Pontiff 
was obliged to seek for safety in flight from his capital. 
Rome was in revolt, and Arnold of Brescia sought to renew 
there a spectre of the old Pagan Republic. John of Salis- 
bury, in his " Polycraticus^'^ faithfully attests that, on his 
arrival in Italy, the Papal Court was held not in Rome, but 
in Beneventum : it was in this city he presented to Pope 
Adrian the congratulations of Henry 11. ; and he mentions 
his sojourn there during the three months that he remained 
in Italy. This is further confirmed by the Italian chronicles. 
Baronius saw the inconsistency of the formula, Datum 
Momce^ with the date 1155, and hence, in his Annals, he 
entered Adrian's Bull under the year 1159 ; but if this date 
be correct, surely then ' that Bull could not have been 
brought to Henry by John of Salisbury, and the passage of 
the " 3Ietalogicus " referring to it, must at once be admitted 
a forgery. Other historians have been equally puzzled to. 
find a year for this supposed Bull. For instance, O'Hal- 
loran, in his History of Ireland, whilst admitting that the 
Irish people always regarded the Bull as a forgery, refers its 
date to the year 1167, that is, eight years after the death of 
Pope Adrian TV, 

There is only one other reflection with which I wish to 
detain the reader. The condition of our country, and the 
relations between Ireland and the English King, which are 
set forth in the supposed Bull, are precisely those of the year 
1172; but it would have required more than a prophetic 
vision to have anticipated them in 1155. In 1155 Ireland 
w^as not in a state of turmoil or verging towards barbarism ; 
on the contrary, it was rapidly progressing and renewing its 
claim to religious and moral pre-eminence. I will add, that 
Pope Adrian, who had studied under Irish masters, knew 
well this flourishing condition of our country. In 1172, 



APPENDIX, 217 

howeverj a sad change had come over our island. Four 
years of continual warfare, and the ravages of the Anglo- 
Norman filibusterers, since their first landing in 1168, had 
well-nigh reduced Ireland to a state of barbarism, and the 
authentic letters of Alexander III., in 1172, faithfully de- 
scribe its most deplorable condition. Moreover, an expedi- 
tion of Henry to Ireland, which would not be an invasion, 
and yet would merit the homage of the Irish princes, was 
simply an impossibility in 1155. But owing to the special 
circumstances of the kingdom, such in reality was the expe- 
dition of Henry in 1172. He set out for Ireland, not avow- 
edly to invade and conquer it, but to curb the insolence and 
to punish the deeds of pillage of his own Norman free- 
booters. Hence, during his stay in Ireland he fought no 
battle and made no conquest ; his first measures of severity 
were directed against some* of the most lawless of the early 
Norman adventurers, and this more than anything else recon- 
ciled the native Princes to his military display. In return he 
received from a majority of the Irish Chieftains the empty 
title of Ard-righy or " Head Sovereign," which did not sup- 
pose any conquest on his part, and did not involve any 
surrender of their own hereditary rights. Such a state of 
things could not have been imagined in 1155 ; and yet it is 
one which is implied in the spurious Bull of the much- 
maUgned Pontifi*, Adrian the Fourth. 

fP. F. M. 
10 



I^A.IIT II. 

THE INSUERECTIOI^ OF 1641. 

analysis of the legend, and exposure of sir john 
temple's falsifications. 

[In his '^Vindicioi HihemiccB^'''' first published in Philadelphia, in 
1819, Mathew Carey gives the story told by Sir John Temple of the 
pretended "Rebellion" of 1641, with an analysis of the legend, in 
which (even from English authorities) the contradictions and exag- 
gerations of Temple and Borlase are exposed. The full text is ap- 
pended.] 

llie Insurrection in 1641. Was there a General Conspira- 
cy of the Irish Catholics^ in that year^ to Murder 
the Protestants? 

*' A perjur'd wretcli, whom falsehood clothes, 
Ev'n like a garment — 
Who in the day's broad searching eye, 
Makes God bear witness to a lie." — Churchill, 

The decision of this question is attended with far more 
difficulty than any of those hitherto presented to the view 
of the reader. The nature of the case does not admit of the 
same kind of evidence as I have been hitherto enabled to 
j)roduce, and which, I flatter myself, has been found irre- 
sistible. 

The tale of this conspiracy has been so universally credit- 
ed ; so large a portion of the possessors of confiscated prop- 
erty in Ireland have been for one hundred and eighty years 
interested in afibrding it support and countenance ; so much 



APPENDIX, 219 

art and talent have been, during that time, employed in giv- 
ing it an air of plausibility ; there is so much difficulty in 
proving a negative in any case, more particularly in the 
present one, which is naturally, and has been moreover art- 
fully, involved in mystery ; and it is so extremely arduous 
an undertaking to operate upon the public mind, when im- 
bued with inveterate prejudices, that the task is truly Her- 
culean, and I should have abandoned it as impracticable, but 
that the narrative itself is replete with so many incredible 
and incongruous circumstances, as to carry strong internal 
evidence of fraud. 

f In order to give the story fair play, and to enable the 
reader to form a correct opinion on the subject, with all the 
evidence before him, I shall give the whole account of the 
discovery of the plot, as it stands in Temple's History of the 
Irish Rebellion, the authority almost solely relied on by all 
the subsequent writers on the subject. Some slight extracts 
are added from Borlase, containing a few additional par- 
ticulars. 

To simplify the. examination, the narrative is divided into 
short sentences, each containing perfect sense, to oblige the 
reader to pause and reflect, as he proceeds. 

The discussion of this question being one of the main ob- 
jects of the work, the reader's calm and candid consideration 
of it is earnestly invoked. It is hoped that, laying aside all 
preconceived opinions on the subject, he will revolve it in his 
mind, as if it were wholly new, and he had now, for the first 
time in his life, to form a decision on it. 

There are, unfortunately, too many to whom a compliance , 
with this request is impossible : and indeed a large proper- J 
tion of mankind can never command independence of mind 
enough even to examine evidence that militates with their 
early, and, of course, inveterate prejudices; far less ever to 
abandon those prejudices. There are, therefore, thousands 



220 APPENDIX, 

who would as soon doubt any of the demonstrations of 
Euclid, or the existence of the solar system, as the existence 
of the universality of the plot of "the execrable rebellion of 
1641." 

To this contracted class I do not address myself: with 
them I have no fellowship : " Even though one were to rise 
from the dead," his testimony would not convince them. 
Let them hug the chains of their bigoted prejudices. The 
appeal is to that respectable description of readers, whose 
minds, open to conviction, ,are at all times ready to yield 
to the force of evidence, how strongly soever it may militate 
against opinions which have " grov*^n with their growth.'^ 
The favorable decision of one such reader, with a clear head 
and sound heart, would outweigh the disapprobation of a 
whole army of the slaves of prejudice. 

Extracts from Te^mj^le'^s History of the Irish Mebellion/^ 

1. " Sir William Cole, upon the very first apprehensions 
of something that he conceived to be hatching among the 
Irish, did write a letter to the lords justices and council, 
dated the 11th of October, 1641. 

2. ''Wherein he gave them notice of the great resort 
made to sir Phelim O'Neal, in the coimty of Tyrone, as also 
to the house of the lord Macguire, in the county of Fer- 
managh, and that by several siispected persons, fit instru- 
ments for mischief; 

. 3. ''As also that the said lord 3Iacguire had of late made 
several journies into the Pale and other places^ and had spent 
his time much in writing letters and sending despatches 
abroad. 

4. " These letters icere received by the lords justices and 
council ; 

5. "And they, in answer to them, required him to be 
very vigilant and industrious to find out what should be 

* The reader will please to observe, that these extracts are taken verbatim from 
the original work ; and, unless where otherwise distinctly marked bj^ a dash, form an 
unbroken consecutive series. 



APPENDIX, 221 

the occasion of these several meetings, and speedily to adver- 
tise them thereof, or of any other particular that he con- 
ceived might tend to the public service of the state." 

6. '' They [the lords justices] had not any certain notice 
of the general conspiracy of the Irish, until the 2 2d of 
October, in the very evening before the day appointed for 
the surprise of the castle and city of Dublin. 

7. " The conspirators being, many of them, arrived within 
the city, and having that day met at the Lion tavern, in 
Copper alley, and there turning the drawer out of the room, 
ordered their affairs together, and drunk healths upon their 
knees to the happy, success of the next morning's w^ork. 

8. " Owen O'Connally, a gentleman of' a mere Irish fam- 
ily^ but one that had long lived among the English, and 
been trained up in the true Protestant religion, came unto 
the lord justice Parsons, about nine o'clock that even- 
ing ! ! 

9. " And made him a broken relation of a great con- 
spiracy for the seizing upon his majesty's castle of Dublin. 

10. " Tie gave liiin the names of some of the chief con- 
spirators ! assured him that they were come up expressly 
to the town for the same purpose ; and that next morning 
they would undoubtedly attempt, and surely effect it, if 
their design vv^ere not speedily prevented ; 

11. ''And that he had understood all this from Hugh 
Mac-Mahon, one of the chief conspirators, who was then in 
tow^n, and came up hut the very same afternoon^ for the ex- 
ecution of the plot ; 

12. "And with whom indeed he had been drinking some-^ 
what libei'ally / and as the truth is, did then make such a 
broken relation of a matter that seemed so incredible in 
itself as that his lordship gave very little belief to it at 

first! ! ! ' 

13. ''In regard it came from an obscure person^ and one, 
as he conceived, somewhat distempered at that time. 

14. "But howsoever, the lord Parsons gave him order to 
go again to Mac-Mahon! ! ! and get out of him as much 
certainty of the pAot ! ! ! with as many particular circum- 
stances, as he could ! ! ! straitly charging him to return back 
unto him the same evenino- ! ! ! 



222 APPENDIX. 

15. "And in the mean time, having by strict commands 
given to the constable of the castle, taken order to have the 
gates thereof well guarded^ as also with the mayor and 
sheriffs of the city to have strong watches set upon all parts 
of the same, and to make stay of all strangers, 

16. ''He ^^^Yi.t privately ! ! about ten of the clock that 
night, to the lord Borlase's house without the town^ and 
there acquainted him with what he understood from O'Con- 
aily^ 

17. " They sent for such of the council as they knew then 
to be in the toivn.^ 

18. " But there came only unto them that night sir 
Thomas Botheram and sir Robert Meredith, chancellor of 
the exchequer : with these they fell into consultation what 
was fit to he done! ! ! ! attending the return of O'Conally. 

19. '' And finding that he staid somewhat longer than the 
time prefixed, they sent out in search after him ; 

20. '' And found him seized on by the watch, and so he 
had been carried away to prison, and the discovery that 
night disappointed, 

21. '' Had not one of the lord Person's seri^ants, expressly 
sent, amongst others, to walk the streets^ and attend the mo- 
tions of the said 0' Conally^ come in, and rescued him, and 
brought him to the lord Borlase's house. 

* Although I shall analyze this precious narrative at length, before this chapter is 
closed, I cannot refrain from calling the reader's attention to these two paragi-aphs, 
16 and 17, as they alone would be sufficient \\ith impartial men, to discredit the whole 
plot. Sir William Parsons, being in th^ city of Dublin, at nine o'clock at night, is 
infoimed of a plot to explode in thirteen hours. — Instead of at once seizing the con- 
ppirators, he sends a drunken man, whose absence must have excited suspicion, to 
make'further -discoveries — and at ten o'clock, he goes '-'' privately"' \jo\ox^ Borlase's 
house "o^^^ of town'''' — and then sends for such of the council as he knew to be then 
' ' in town. " Was there ever a more Munchausen tale ? It is hardly calculated to 
impose on an idiot. How far out of town sir John's house was, cannot Ue ascertained 
— suppose only a mile. Then he walked a mile — the messenger another — and such 
of the council as were found, had to walk a third mile, and for what ? To be so far 
removed from the scene of action, and from the means of applying a remedy to the 
impending evils, as to give every opportunity to the conspirators to insure their suc- 
cess ! Here was a most pernicious delay, when every moment was invaluable ! ! Had 
there been any reality in the plot, sir William would have remained ''Hn town'''' — 
collected all of the councU there at the time — sent a messenger " out of town " for 
Ear John Borlase — and then collected the whole body at their posts, where they ought 
to be on such an emergency. 



APPENDIX, 223 

22. '^ O'Conaliy having somewhat recovered himself from 
his distemper, occasioned partly, as he said himself, by the 
horror of the plot revealed to him, partly by his too liberal 
drinking with Mac-Mahon, that he might the more easily 
get away from him, (he beginning much to suspect and fear 
his discovery of the plot,) 

23. " Confirmed what he had formerly related, and added 
these further particulars set down in his examination, as 
followeth : 

" The examination of Owen 0'' Conally ^ gentleman^ taken 
before us^ whose names ensiie^ October 22^ 1641. 
i' Who being duly sworn and examined, saith : 

24. " That he being at Jlfonimore, in the county of Lon- 
donderiy, on Tuesday last ! he received a letter from colonel 
Hugh Oge Mac-Mahon, desiring him to come to Conaught, 
in the county of Monaghan, and to be with him on W^ednes- 
day or Thursday last ! 

25. '^ Whereupon he, this examinate, came to Conaught 
on Wednesday nig] it last ; . 

26. " And finding the said Hugh come to Dublin, fol- 
lowed him hither ; 

27. '' Pie came hither about six of the clock this evening ! 

28. " And forthwith went to the lodging of the said 
Hugh, to the house near the Boat, in Oxmantown ; 

29. "And there he found the said Hugh, and came with 
the said Hugh into the town^ near the pillory, to the lodging 
of the lord Macguire ; 

30. " Where they found not the lord within; and there 
they drank a cup of beer ; 

31. " And then went back again to the said Hugh his 
lodging ; He -- 

32. " He saith, that at the lord Maguire his lodging, the 
said Hugh told him that there w^ere and would be this night 
great numbers of noblemen and gentlemen of the Irish 
I^apists, from all the parts of the kingdom, in this tow^n ; 

33. '"" Who with himself had determined to take the castle of 
Dublin, and possess themselves of all liis majesty's ammuni- 
tion there, to-mori^ow morning^ being Saturday ; 

34. " And that they intended first to batter the chimnies 

* Here again is a dodging '•Hnto town'''' and "owi of town.'''' 



224 APPENDIX, 

of the said town ; and if the city would not yield, then to 
batter down the houses ; 

35. " And so to cut off all the Protestants that would no1> 
join with them ! 

36. " He further saith, that the said Hugh then told him, 
that the Irish had prepared men in all parts of the kingdom, 
to destroy all the JSnglish inhabiting there^ to-m^orrow morn- 
ing by ten of the clock ! ! 

37. ^* And that in all the sea-ports, and other towns in 
the kingdom, all the Protestants should be killed, this night ! ! 
and that all the posts that could be, could not prevent it ; 

38. " And further saith, that he moved the said Hugh to 
forbear executing of that business, and to discover it to the 
state, for the saving of his own estate ; 

39. " Who said he could not help it ; but said, that they 
did owe their allegiance to the king, and would pay him all 
his rights : but that they did this for the tyrannical govern- 
ment that was over them, and to imitate Scotland, which 
got a privilege by that course ; 

40. " And he further saith, that when he was with the 
said Hugh, in his lodging the second time, the said Hugh 
swore, that he should not go out of his lodging that night ; 
but told him that he should go with him the next morning 
to the castle ; and said, if this matter were discovered, some 
body should die for it ; 

40^. " Whereupon this examinate feigned some necessity 
for his easement ; went down out of the chamber ; and left 
his sword in pawn; and the said Hugh sent his man down 
with him ; and when this examinate came down into the 
yard, and finding an opportunity, he, this examinate, lea^ot 
over a wall and two pales !! ! and so came to the lord jus- 
tice Parsons. 

" October 22, 1641. . 

William Parsons, 
Thomas Rotheram, 
Robert Meredith, 
Owen O'Conally." 

41. " How it came to pass that the other lord justice at- 
tested not the examination^ (it being took in his house^ he 
present^) hath begot some doubts, evidencing how (since) 
counsels swerved into cabals." 



APPENDIX. 225 

42. '^ Hereupon the lords took present order to have a 
watch privately set upon the lodging of Mac-Mahon^ as also 
upon the lord 3Iacguire ! ! ! ! ! '^ 

43. ^' And so they sat up all that night in consultation ! ! ! 
having far stronger presumptions upon this letter examina- 
tion taken than any ways at first they corJcl entertain. 

44. " The lords justices, upon a further consideration, 
there being come unto them early next mmming ! several 
others of the privy council, sent before day^ and seized upon 
Mac-Machon^ then loith his servant in his own lodging. 

45. " They at first made some littTe resistance with their 
drawn swords ; but finding themselves over-mastered, pres- 
ently yielded. 

46. ''And so they were brought before the lords justices 
and council, still sitting at the lord Borlase's house, f 

47. " Where, npon examination, he did without much 
difficulty confess the plot, resolutely telling them, that 
on that very day^ all the forts and strong places in Ireland^ 
would he taken ! ! 

48. '' That he, with the lord Macguire, Hugh Birn, cap- 
tain Brian O'Neil, and several other Irish gentlemen, were 
come up expressly to surprise the castle of Dublin. 

49. " That twenty men out of each county in the king- 
dom ! ! I were to be here to join with them. J 

50. '' That all the lords and gentlemen in the kingdom^ 
that were papists^ were engaged in this plot ! ! ! 

51. '' That what was that day to he done in other parts of 
the country^ was so far advanced by that time, as it was im- 
possible for the wit of man to prevent it ! 

52. '' And withal told them, that it was true they had him 
in their power, and might use him how they pleased, but he 
was sure he should be reveno^ed." 



* The lords justices have information of a plot to explode in a few hours, whereby 
they are to be murdered, and as a precautionary measure, '-''set a watch privately 
upon the lodgings''' of the chief conspirators ! ! 

t It appears, therefore, that the council was sitting all night '"'■at lord Borlase's 
house,"" " out oftoivn,'" so as to leave the conspirators free scope to carry their proj- 
ects into execution " iJi town."*^ Was ever an imposture so absurdly compacted ? 

X There are thirty-two counties in Ireland, some of them one hundred and fifty 
miles from Dublin — and twenty men were to be marched from each comity, to exe- 
cute a plot requiring the utmost secresy I ! An admirable scheme I 

10* 



226 APPENDIX, 

53. Extract from " Tlie lords chief justices' letter to tlie 
lord lieutenant, October 25, 1641, sent by Owen O'Conally, 
the first discoverer. * 

" May it pl^ease your lordship, 

54. '' On Friday, the 22nd of this month, after nine 
o'clock at nighty this bearer, Owen O'Conally, SERVANT 
TO SIR JOHN CLOTWORTHY, KNIGHT, came to me, 
the lord justice Parsons, to my house, 

55. '' And in grea^t secresie (as indeed the caus^did re- 
quire,) discovered unto me a most wicked and damnable 
conspiracy, plotted, contrived, and intended to be also acted 
by some evil-affected Irish Papists here. 

56. " The plot was on the then next morning, Saturday, 
the 23d of October, being St. Ignatius's day, about nine of 
the clock ! to surprise his majesty's castle of Dublin, his 
majesty's chief strength of this kingdom ; w4aerein also is the 
principal magazine of his majesty's arms and munition. 

57. " And it was agreed, it seems among them, that at 
the same hour, all other his majesty'' s forts and inagazines 
of arms and munition in this kingdom ! ! should be sur- 
prised by others of those conspirators : 

b"^, '^ And further, that all the Protestants and English 
throughout the whole kingdom^ that would not join with 
them, should be cut off ! ! and so those Papists should then 
become possessed of the government and -kingdom at the 
same instant. 

59. "As soon as I had that intelligence, I then immedi- 
ately repaired to the lord justice Borlase ; and thereupon 
we instantly assembled the council. 

60. " And having sate all that night ! ! ! also all the next 
day, the 23d of October, in regard of the short time left us 
for the consultation of so great and weighty a matter, 
although it w^as not possible for us, upon so few hours' 
w^arning, to prevent those other great mischiefs which were 



* Thus it appears that the lords justices did not think it necessary to write the 
lord lieutenant, then in London, till Monday the 25th, respecting a conspiracy for the 
destruction of "all the Protestants in Ireland that would not join it,'' which was to 
have exploded on the 23d 1 



APPENDIX. 227 

to be acted, even at the same hour and at so great a dis- 
tance, in all the other parts of the kingdom ; * 

61. '' Yet such was our industry therein, having caused 
the castle to he that night strengthened with armed men^ and 
the city guarded, as the wicked councils of those evil per- 
sons, by the great mercy of God to us, became defeated, so 
as they were not able to act that part of their treachery, 
which indeed was principal. 

62. ''And which, if they could have effected, would have 
rendered the rest of their purposes the more easy. 

63. " Having so secured the castle, we forthwith laid 
about for the apprehension of as many of the offenders as 
we could, many of them having come to this city but that 
night, intending, it seems, the next morning, to act their 
parts in those treacherous and bloody crimes. 

64. "The first man apprehended was one Hugh Mac- 
Malion, Esq., (grandson tO the traitor Tyrone,) a gentleman 
of good fortune in the county of Monaghan, who, with 
others, was taken that morning in Dublin, having, at the 
time of their apprehension, offered a little resistance with 
their swords drawn ; but finding those we employed against 
them more in number, and better armed, yielded. 

65. " He, upon examination before us, at first denied all ; 
but in the end, when he saw we laid it home to him, he 
confessed enough to destroy himself, and impeach some 
others, as by a copy of his examination herewith sent, may 
appear to your lordship. 

^^, " We then committed him until we might have fur- 
ther time to examine him again, our time being become more 
needful to be employed in action for securing this place, 
than examining. This Mac-Mahon had been abroad, and 
served the King of Spain as a lieutenant colonel. 

67. " Upon conference with him and others! ! ! and call- 
ing to mind a letter we received the week before from sii' 
William Cole ! ! ! a copy whereof we send your lordship 
here inclosed, we gathered, that the lord Macguire was to he 
an actor in surprising the castle of Dublin ! ! ! ! ! \ 

* " Which were to be acted, even at the same hour, in all other parts of the king- 
dom " — but which were not acted, nor attempted. 

t After having set a guard on his house the preceding night, they required all this 
variety of mformation, to ^^ gather thai the lord Macguire was to be an actor in 
surprising the castle of Dublin i " 



228 APPENDIX. 

Q>d^, " Wherefore we held it necessary to secure him im- 
mediately, thereby also to startle and deter the rest, when 
they found him laid fast." 



Extracts from JBorlase's " History of the Execrable Irish 

Hebellion,^'^ 

69. ^^In the interim, the lord Parsons, (being touched 
with the relation,) repaired, about ten of the clock at night, 
to the lord Borlase, at Chichester house, without the town ; 

70. " And disclosed to him what CConally had imparted ; 
which made so sensible an impression on his colleague, as 
(the discoverer being let go,) he grew infinitely concerned 
thereat, having none to punish, if the story should prove 
false, or means to learn more, were it true. 

71. "In the disturbance of which perplexity, Owen 
O'Conally comes, (or, as others write, was brought,) where 
the lords justices were then met ;* sensible that his discovery 
was not thoroughly believed, professing that whatever he 
had acquainted the lord Parsons with, (touching the con- 
spiracy,) was true : 

72. "And could he but repose himself, {the effects of 
drink being still ujjon him,) he should discover more. 

73. " Whereupon he had the convenience^ of a bed.^^ 



74. "In the interim, the lords justices 'summoned as 
many of the council as they could give notice to, to their 
assistance that night at Chichester house. 

75. " Sir Thomas Kotheram, and Sir Pobert Meredith, 
chancellor of the exchequer, came immediately to them. 

76. "They then with all diligence secured the gates of 
the cit}^, * with such as they could most confide in, and 
strengthened the warders of the castle, (which were a few in- 
considerable men,) with their foot guard, f usually attending 
their persons, charging the mayor and his brethren to be 

* "They secured the gates of the city." That is to say, the conspirators were 
"i7i the towiV — and they "owi of town^"^ — they therefore must have shut them- 
selves out. 

t " The foot guard." Thus the safety of the city was confided, at a time of such 
imminent danger, to '-Hhe warders^'''' "a few inconsiderable men^'''' and "the foot- 
guard" of the lords justices, '■'' usually attending iAefr perso/is," which cannot be 
presumed to have been more than ten or a dozen at most I 



APPENDIX. 229 

watchful of oil persons that should walk the streets that 
night!!!'' 

77. "Hugh Oge Mac-Mahon, Esq., grandson by his 
mother to the traitor Tir-0 wen, a gentleman of good fort- 
une in the county of Monaghan, who had served as a lieu- 
tenant-colonel in the king of Spain's quarters, was, after 
some little resistance, apprehended before day in his own 
lodgings^ over the water, near the Inns, and brought 
to Chichester house ; 

78. " Where, upon examination, he did, without much 
difficulty, confess the plot, resolutely telling them. That on 
THAT VERY DAY, (it toas nov) ahout Jive in the morning, the 
23d of Oct., 1641 ! ! !) that all the forts and strong places in 
Ireland would be taken," (fee, &c. 



t\ 



19, " Before Mac-Mahon was apprehended, O'Conally, 
having on his repose recovered himself, had his examination 
taken, in these words : " [as before.] 

Analysis of the foregoing legend, 

I. A Koman Catholic colonel is engaged in a plot, the ob- 
ject of which is ^' to massacre all the Protestants in the 
kingdom,'' '' exce'^t those who would join" in murdering 
their brethren. 

II. This colonel, in want of a confederate, sends about 
fifty miles to O'Conally, a Protestant^ to reveal to him this 
project. 

III. O'Conally, who, in order to attach importance to his 
testimony, in some of the statements is styled '^ a gentleman," 
is, in fact and in truth, merely a servant to Sir John Clot- 
worthy, one cf the most envenomed enemies of the Roman 
Catholics, and, of course, a very suitable person to be in- 
trusted with such a secret, and very worthy to be sent for 
to a place distant forty-five miles. 

IV. O'Conally receives a letter on Tuesday, the 19th of 



230 APPENDIX. 

October, at what hour is not known, — say nine o'clock ; 
and, wholly ignorant of the nature of the affair which leads 
to the invitation, makes all his preparations at once, and 
commences his journey, we will suppose, about noon the 
same day. 

Y. He arrives on Wednesday nighty the 20th, at Con- 
aught, after a journey of about forty-five miles : and be it 
observed, en passant^ that a journey of forty-five miles, at 
that period, was nearly as arduous an undertaking, and re- 
quired almost as much preparation, as a journey of one hun- 
dred and fifty at present. 

VI. Colonel Mac-Mahon, whose invitation had given 
O'Conally the option of coming on Wednesday or Thursday ^ 
so far broke his engagement, that he had started, on Wednes- 
day, for Dublin, previous to O'Conally's arrival, which took 
place on the night of that day. 

YII. O'Conally, nothing discouraged by the breach of en- 
gagement on the part of the colonel, follows him to Dublin. 

YIIl. He arrives in that city .on the memorable Friday, 
the 22d of October, " about six o'clock in the evening" one 

HOUR AFTER SUNSET. 

IX. Conaught, in Monaghan, is not to be found on any 
map. I will therefore suppose it to have been in the centre 
of the county. 

X. Monimore, by Pinkerton's map, is about forty miles 
in a direct line from the centre of the county of Monaghan 
— and this centre is about sixty miles also in a direct line 
from Dublin. The whole distance must, by the usual circui- 
tous windmgs of the road, have been at the very least one 
hundred and ten miles, 

XI. The climate of Ireland is very moist. Rains are gen- 
erally abundant, particularly in autumn. Of course, the 
roads at that season were very prohahly miry^ and difficult 
to travel. 



APPENDIX. 231 

XII, It thus appears, that O'Conally has perfox^med a 
journey of about forty-five miles in a day and a half; that 
isj from mid-day on Tuesday, to Wednesday night: and a 
hundred and ten in three days and a half, at a season of the 
year, when the sun hose about seven, and set about 
FIVE ! ! ajid this exploit was accomplished at a time when 
there were no diligences, post-coaches, post-chaises, or steam- 
boats, to insure expedition ; and when, moreover, the roads 
were in all probability in very bad order. 

XIII. Nothing discouraged by the fatigue of his journey 
of a hundred and ten miles, nor by his previous disappoint- 
ment, nor by the darkness of the evening, he commences a 
search for the lodgings of an entire stranger, who had arrived 
that evening ! Wonderful to tell, and impossible to be be- 
lieved, he is said to have succeeded, and to have found out 
the ' stranger's lodgings ! And let it not be forgotten, that 
on this night the 7)ioon was invisibley^^ a circumstance admi- 
rably calculated to aid his researches ! 

XI Y. Although the colonel was engaged in a plot to ex- 
plode next day^ at<en o^cloch^ A, M.^ O'Conally finds him 
alone, between six and seven \ o^ clock on Friday evening^ in 
the suburbs. He appears to have seen none of his brother 
conspirators before nine, at which time O'Conally left him. 

XY. The colonel takes him to the lodgings of a brother 
conspirator " into town^'' at the distance, probably, of a mile 
or two. 

XYI. This conspirator not being at home, the colonel, 
after having taken a drink of beer with his new friend, 

* Extract of a letter frovi the Vice-Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, 
"Dear Sir, January 6, 1819. 

"I find that it was New Moon^ at Dublin, at about two o'clock in the morning 
of the 24th of October, 1641, O. S. Consequentl}^ the moon must have been invisible 
on the whole night of the 22d-23d of that month. 

" Yours, etc., 
"MR. M. Carey. "R. M. PATTERSON." , 

t It must have required some time to find out Mac-Mahon's lodgings. 



232 APPENDIX. 

freely communicates '' that there were and would be, this 
night, great numbers of noblemen and gentlemen of the 
Irish, from all parts of the kingdom," whose object was " to 
cut off all the Protestants that would not join therrhP 

XYII. And they then went back to '^ the said JSugh his 
lodgings^'* in the suburbs, "near Oxmantown," where 
O'Conally drank till he was drunk. 

XYIII. O'Conally notwithstanding this untoward circum- 
stance, and that he was, two hours afterwards, unable to re- 
late a consistent story, w1as alert enough " to leap over a 
wall^'^ and afterwards over " two pales ^"^ 

XIX. Notwithstanding his disordered state, he was able 
to find his way to sir William Parsons, into the town^ to 
whom he communicated the whole afiair. 

XX. Here let us observe that this very sir William had 
received information of a plot, several days before, from sir 
William Cole, " upon the very first apprehension of some- 
thing he conceived to he hatching among the IrishP 

XXI. And further, that this lord .justice had written to 
sir William Cole, "to be very vigilant in inquiring into the 
occasion of those meetings ; " whereby it appears that he 
had suspicions of a conspiracy. 

XXII. Notwithstanding this information, sir William 
Parsons, who was jealous of some plot " hatching among the 
Irish ; " who, of course, ought to be on the qui vive^ and to 
take alarm on the slightest intimation of any scheme of that 
kind ; when he received this " broken relation of a matter 
so incredible in itself gave very little belief to it at first , in 
regard it came from an obscure person, and one, as he con- 
ceived, somewhat distempered at that time." 

XXIII. " His lordship," with most wonderful sagacity, 
" hearing this broken relation " of a plot to explode in about 
twelve or thirteen hours, for the purpose of cutting the 
throats of all the Protestants, sends the informer ! ! between 



APPENDIX, 233 

nine and ten at night ! ! with " order to go again to Mac- 
Mahon, and get out of him as much certainty of the plot as 
he could ! ! ! " 

XXIV. This informer who " had been drinking somewhat 
liberally V — and was " somewhat distempered at the thne^"^ 
was a most admirable spy to make further discoveries, and 
'' to get out of Mac-Mahon .as much certainty of the plot, 
with as many particular circumstances as he could ! ! ! " His 
fitness for this employment at such a critical moment, was 
further proved by the circumstance that on his return he was 
so far intoxicated, " the effects of drink being still upon 
hirn^'^ that he could not give in his testimony, till he slept 
himself sober! !! Therefore, tlie " conveniency of a bed'^ 
being afforded him, '' on his repose, having recovered him- 
self, he had his examination taken." 

XX Y. After sending O'Conally to Mac-Mahon's lodgings, 
with strict orders " to return back unto him the same even- 
ing," sir William went ^^ privately^ at about ten of the clock 
that night, to Lord Borlase's house, without the town," 
whereas O'Conally v/as directed to come to him at his house 
"in the town." 

XX YI. " They sent for such of the council as they knew 
then to be in the town," to lord Borlase's house, " without 
the town." 

XXYII. There they fell into deep consultation "what 
was fib to be done, attending the return of O'Conally." 

XXYII I. They then sent in search of him, and found 
that he had been taken by the watch, and rescued by the 
servants of sir William Parsons, " who had been sent, 
amongst others, to walk the streets, and attend his motions." 

XXIX. " Sensible that his discovery was not thoroughly 
believed, he professed that whatever he had acquainted the 
lord Parsons with, was true ; and could he but repose him- 



234: APPENDIX, 

self, (the effects of drink being still upon him^) he should dis- 
cover more," 

XXX. " Whereupon he had the conveniency of a hed^ 

XXXI. " Having, (on his repose,) recovered himself ^'^^ 
Le gave in his deposition. 

XXXII. This is dated the 22d, and of course must have 
been made before twelve o'clock. 

XXXIII. This deposition gave a full detail of a most 
murderous plot, whereby " all the Protestants and English 
throughout the whole kingdom^ were to he cut off' the next 
Tiiorningy 

XXXIY. Possessed of this deposition, which required 
the most decisive measures of precaution, it becomes a seri- 
ous question, what did the lords justices do ? On this point 
the whole merits of the question might be rested : and in- 
deed the investigation of any other might be wholly omitted. 
The answer is, '' They took present order to have a watch 
privately set upon the lodgings of Mac-Mahon^ as also upon 
the lord Macguire ! ! P"^ 

XXXY. In a plain simple case, in which a school-boy of 
ten years old could have at once pointed out the course to 
be pursued, they spend no less t\i.2in. five precious hours ^ "in 
consultation^'' and in devising ways and means for the pub- 
lic safety, notwithstanding that the sword, not of Damocles, 
but of Mac-Mahon, and his bloody-minded associates, hung 
'Over them. " They sat up all that night in consultation," 
*' having far stronger presumptions,* upon the latter exam- 
ination taken, than any ways at first they could entertain." 

XXXVI. The result of their long and painful consulta- 
tion, from twelve o'clock at night till five in the morning. 



* O'Conall}' swore positively that there was a conspiracy " to murder all the Protes- 
tants that would not join'' with the conspirators. Yet the justices from this une- 
quivocal testimony only derived ''' presumpUoriH " of their danger 1 



APPENDIX. 235 

was, that at that late hour, they at length adopted the reso- 
lution of apprehending Mac-Mahon !!!!!! 

XXX YI I. The lords justices had received the names of 
some of the principal conspirators from O'Conally, ^nd, 
among the rest, of lord Macguire; had ''' privately set a 
watch^ on Friday night," at his lodgings ; they must of 
course have known that he was equally implicated with Mac- 
Mahon, and equally demanded the exercise of their vigil- 
ance ; and yet they did not think of arresting him, until 
after the seizure of the latter, and " a conference with him 
and others, and calling to mind a letter received the week 
before from sir William Cole^"^ they "gathered" that he 
" was to be an actor in surprising the castle of Dublin ! " 

XXXYIII. Owen O'Conally swears, that " in all parts of 
the kingdom, all the English inhabiting tliere," are to be 
"destroyed to-morrow morning ^ " but, in the very next sen- 
tence, he swears, " that all the Protestants, in all the sea- 
ports, and other towns in the kingdom, should be killed this 
nightP It is not easy to conceive, how, after they were 
" all hilled'''' on Friday night, they could be " all destroyed'''^ 
on Saturday morning. 

XXXIX. O'Conally's deposition states, that the massacre 
is to begin at " ten o'clock on the 23d; " to be general " in 
all parts of the kingdom ; " that ail the English inhabitants 
are to be cut off; and that " all the posts that could be, 
could not prevent it." As this is the cardinal point in the 
affair, on which the whole turns, if it can be proved to be so 
unequivocally false and groundless, as to be utterlj^ destitute 
of even the shadow of truth, then is the entire story a fab- 
rication, and O'Conally a perjurer. 

XL. That this explosion did not take place ; and that, of 
course, there could not possibly have been a general conspir- 
acy, there is superabundant testimony, as will appear in the 
subsequent paragraphs. 



236 APPENDIX. 

XLI. I will first premise, that, as the arrest of Mac- 
Malion and Macguire, in consequence of the pretended dis- 
covery of the sham plot, took place on the 23d of October, . 
atflte o'clock in the morning^ just five hours before the time 
fixed for commencing the massacre, that circumstance could 
not have prevented an explosion in any other part of the 
kingdom, except in a very small portion of the ciixumjacent 
country. 

XLI I. Yet on Monday, the 25 th of October, the lords 
justices Avrote an elaborate and detailed account of the pro- 
ceedings of the insurgents in the north of Ireland, with a 
prolix statement of various outrages, not only without the 
least hint or surmise, but even with an utter exclusion of 
every idea, of murder or shedding of blood. 

XLIII. And further, I invoke the most earnest attention 
of the reader to this all -important fact — Notwithstanding 
the pretended generality of the plot, the lords justices, by 
public proclamation, on the 29th of October, declared that 
the insurrection was confined to " the mere old Irish of the 
province of Ulster, and others who adhered to them." 

XLIY. These two strong facts prove that such parts of 
O'Conally's deposition as relate to the general extent of the 
conspiracy, and the plot to ^^cut ofi* all the Protestants 
throughout the kingdom'" are wholly false, and that he of 
course was an abandoned perjurer ; and would decide the 
question on these vital points, beyond appeal or controversy. 
But much stronger evidence remains behind, derived from 
Temple, Borlase, Carte, Leland, and Warner, to which I 
now invite the attention of the reader. 

XLY. Munster continued tranquil for six weeks, although, 
according to the testimony of Warner, it contained but one 
troop of horsey^ and of cours^, when defended by such an 

* " In the province of Munster, of which sir William St. Leger was lord president, 
the English were very numerous, and ready to assemble in a body to preserve the 



APPENDIX. 237 

insignificant force, had there been any reality in the plot, the 
Irish could and would have totally overwhelmed their op- 
pressors, * 

XLYI. Connaught was in the same state for six weeks, 
principall}^ owing to the influence of lord Clanrickarde, a 
Roman Catholic, f 

peace and safety of the country. But they were utterly destitute of arms ; and all the 
solicitations made by sir William, which were strong and numerous, could not pq^ ■ 
suade the lords justices and council to spare him any. He was a brave old soldier, of 
great experience and activity ; and did everything that it was possible for a man to 
do with one troop of horse^ ichich was all his guard for the whole province ; a 
guard scarcely sufficient to repress the insolence of robbers, in a time of profound 
peace, much less in a time of such general spoil and disturbance. But, with the 
assistance of the noblemen and gentry of the province, it continued qxiiet for above 
six weeks .' / ! Indeed, no man of quaUty, or gentleman of English blood, either Pa- 
pist or Protestant, had as yet joined the rebels." — Warner.^ZO. 

* There is a discrepancy between Temple and Borlase as to the time when the insur- 
rection commenced in Munster: the former stating it "the beginning," and the latter 
"the midst," of December. This does not, however, affect the disproof of O'Conally's 
deposition, which, in either case, is notoriously false. 

"The flame having marched through Ulster and Leinster, it discovers its fury, 
about the beginning of December^ 1G41, in Munster, which provhice till that time, 
(by the moderation of the state, ) had stifled its rage, then expressing its consent with 
the other provinces." — Bo7Hase^ 49. 

"The whole province of Munster, about the midst of this r)ionth of December^ 
BEGAN to declare themselves in open rebelUon." — Temple^ 155. 

' ' In Munster, sir William St. Legcr, the lord president, a soldier of activity and 
experience, and possessed even with an inveteracy against the Irish,. could not obtain 
arms or soldiers sufficient for a time of peace, much less for a juncture of distrac- 
tion and disorder. Yet the strength of the English Protestants, and the loyalty of 
the Irish gentry^ as yet preserved this province from any material disorder.^'' — Lel- 
and^ iii., 158. 

1- " The lord P»,anelagh was president of Connaught : and all that province, except a 
few pillagers in the county of Sligo, had, owing in a great measure to the forward 
zeal and activity of lord Clanrickarde, though a Koman Catholic, till this time, con- 
tinued quiet." — Warner, 157. 

"The infection of the Pale having spread in the remoter parts, about the middle 
of December^ the whole province of Connaught in a manner revolted, the county of 
Galwaj', of which lord Clanrickarde was governor, excepted." — Ibid., 158. 

"The peace and security oC Connaught were equally neglected by the chief gov- 
ernors, although the English power teas inconsiderable in this province, and. thQ 
Irish natives kept in contmual alarm for twenty-five years by the prospect of a general 
plantation, which, though suspended, had not been formally relinquished. Yet here^ 
too, the good affections of the principal inhabitants stemmed the torrent of rebel- 
lion.'''' — Leland, 158. 



238 APPENDIX. 

XLYII. Leinster was likewise tranquil, except some out- 
rages of small importance, until the beginning of December ; 
as the summons to the lords of the Pale to come to Dublin, 
to consult on the affairs of state, was dated the 3d of that 
month, at which time there was no appearance of serious 
disturbance ; and the butchery at Santry, by the sanguinary 
and merciless ruffian, sir Charles Coote,"*^ which was obvi- 
ously intended to provoke, and actually led to, the insurrec- 
tion in that province, took place on the 7th. 

XLYIII. And further, we have the testimony of Warner 
and Carte, f that the insurrection was- /or a6oi6^ six weeks 
confined almost wholly to the province of Ulster. 

XLIX. That the oriojinal views of the insui-o-ents did not 
comprehend a general massacre, or even single murders, we 
have further testimony, clear and decisive, derived even from 
Temple, as well as Warner, and L eland, which, independent 
of all other proof, would be sufficient to settle this question 
forever, and utterly overwhelm O'Conally's perjured legend. J 

L. Moreover, if there had been a plot for a general insur- 



* "The town being left at his [sir Charles Coote's] mercy, to which he appears to 
he a stranger^ he put to death several persons, without distinction of age or sex! ! I 
in revenge of the several spoils committed on the English in those parts." — War- 
ner^ 165. 

"In revenge of their depredations, he [sir Charles Coote] committed such unpro- 
voked^ such ruthless, and i?idisc7'imitiate carnage in the town, as rivalled the utmost 
extravagancies of the Northerns.'* — Leland, iii., 169. 

+ "Had the lords justices and coimcil acquitted themselves like men of probity and 
understanding, there was time enough given them to suppress an insurrection which 
for six weeks loas confined almost to the province of Ulster^ without any chief that 
was so considerable as sir PheUm O'Neal." — TFar?ier, 130. 

"iV^o one nobleman of the kingdom, nor any estated gentleman of English race, 
engaged in the rebellion, or joined with the rebels in action, till the month of Decem- 
ber ; for as to those gentlemen of the county of Louth, who submitted to them before, 
being unable to defend themselves or to make resistance, they had not yet appeared 
in action. The rebellion till then had been carried on hy the mere Irish, and CON- 
FINED TO ULSTER, to some few counties in Leinster, and that of Leitrim in 
Connaught:'' — Carte, i., 243. 

f "It was resolved" by the insurgents '''•not to kill any^ but where of necessity 
they should be forced thereunto by opposition." — Temple, 65. 



APPENDIX, 239 

rection, and such a massacre as O'Conally swore to, there 
would have been evidence produced from some of the conspir- 
ators : but notwithstanding the lords justices had recourse 
to the execrable aid of the rack, and put Mac-Mahon and 
others to the torture, there is not, in the examinations of 
the former, a single word to corroborate the sanguinary part 
of O'Conally's deposition. The examinations of the rest 
were never published. 

LI. There is not to be found in Temple, Borlase, Carte, 
Warner, Leland, Clarendon, nor, as far as I have seen, in 
Kushworth, the examination of a single person engaged in 
a conspiracy which was said to have extended tliroughout 
the whole kingdom, except those of Mac-Mahon and lord 
Macguire ! ! ! ! That of the latter was not taken till March, 
1642. 



Perhaps the preceding analysis of this miserable legend 
might supersede the necessity of adding anything further on 
the subject. But its great importance, and a deep solicitude 
to dispel the thick mists with which prejudice and fraud have 
overspread it, induce me to place it in a new form, and bring 
it more home to the mind of the reader. The i^ason^ for 
adopting this measure, which might otherwise appear a work 
of supererogation, will probably so far satisfy the reader, as 
to preclude the necessity of an apology. 

Queries, 

Is there a man in the world who can seriously believe : 

I. That a Catholic colonel, engaged in a plot to murder 
tlie Protestants J would send forty-five miles for a Protestant ^ 
SERVANT to a Protestant gentleman, an inveterate enemy to 
the Roman Catholics, as an accomplice ? 

II. That a journey of a hundred and ten miles could be 
performed in three days and a half, the sun rising about 



240 APPENDIX. 

seveUy and setting about Jive^ at a season of the year when 
the rains, then usually prevalent, must have rendered the 
roads almost imp««sable ; and by a man who knew nothing 
of the business which led to the summons he had received, 
and who, of course, had no temptation to maTie any extra- 
ordinary exertion? 

III. That a stranger, arriving in the suburbs of a city an 
Iwur after sunset^ and fatigued with a long journey, should, 
without any aid from the moon^ immediately commence a 
search for and actually find out the lodgings, of another 
stranger, who had arrived a few hours before ? 

IV. That sir William Parsons, who had, at nine in the 
evening, received intelligence of a plot, to explode at ten the 
next morning, and the names of some of the principal con- 
spirators, should be so misguided, as to send back the 
drunken informer, " to get out of Mac-Mahon as much cer- 
tainty of the plot as he could," instead of immediately ap- 
prehending the conspirators ? 

Y. That being " in town^'' he would have gone " without 
the town'^'^ and sent there for such of the council as lived " in 
town^'^ when such an awful explosion was likely to take 
plac^ 

YI. That when the informer returned to the lords justices, 
he would be allowed to go to bed, before taking his examin- 
ations ? 

YII. That the lords justices would have ' remained all 
night, and until five o'clock in the morning, at lord Borlase's 
house, without the town\ and closed the gates, thus shutting 
themselves out from the defence of the castle ? 

YIII. That when O'Conally had slept himself sober, and 
made circumstantial deposition of such alarming particulars, 
the council would have been such idiots as to take no other 
precaution than merely '^ to have a watch set privately upon 
the lodgings of Mac-Mahon, and also upon lord Macguire," 



APPENDIX. 241 

as if thej had been plotting to rob orchards or hen-roosts, to 
bar out a schoolmaster, break lamps in a midnight frolic, or 
attack the watchmen, instead of plotting to seize the castle, 
subvert the government, and cut the throats of one or two 
hundred thousand people ? 

IX. That the privy council would not, under such circum- 
stances, have instantly apprehended ih^ conspirators, instead 
of " sitting all night in council," upon one of the simplest 
points ever discussed, and which could have been decided in 
five minutes, as well as in five hours, five weeks, or fiwe j^ears ; 
on which the most prompt and decisive measures were im- 
periously necessary ; and at a moment when, if there were 
any truth in the statement of O'Conally, the salvation or de- 
struction of the state might depend on a single hour ? 

X. That having taken the precaution, on Friday night, of 
^' setting a watch privately upon the lodgings of lord Mac- 
guire," thereby establishing their belief that he was an ac- 
complice in the plot, they would not have arrested him at 
the same time they arrested Mac-Mahon, but waited " till 
conference with the latter and others, and calling to mind sir 
William Cole's letter," which led them to ^' gather that the 
lord Macguire was to be an actor in surprising the castle of 
Dublin ? " 

XI. That a conspiracy, which was to explode throughout 
the whole kingdom on the 23d of October, should be arrested 
in Leinster, Connaught, and Munster, by the detection of it, 
in Dublin, a few hours before the appointed time ? 

XII. That if it had been intended to murder ^' all the 
Protestants throughout the kingdom^'^ who '^ would not join 
the conspirators," there would have been no intelligence of 
a single murder on the 25th, or that, on the 29th, the lords 
justices shoidd explicitly declare, that the insurrection v/as 
" confined to the mere old Irish in the province of Ulster, 
and others who had joined them? " 

11 



242 APPENDIX. 

XIII. That though the lords justices had recourse to the 
execrable expedient of putting Mac-Mahon and others to the 
rack, they should not have extorted a word from any of 
them, to support the charge of murderous intentions, if any 
conspiracy had existed, for '' cuttiiig off all the Protestants 
and English throughout the kingdom ? " 

XIV. That no examinations should have ever been taken 
of any other of the conspirators ? 

XV. That if there were a general conspiracy, and of 
course a large assemblage of people in Dublin, for the pur- 
pose of seizing the castle on the 23d, the lords justices would 
not have been able, on the morning of that day, to appre- 
hend more than two of the leaders and a few common ser- 
vants ? 

XVI. That to execute an enterprise of which the success 
absolutely depended on promptitude and secresy, people 
would be collected from all the thirty-two counties of Ireland, 
at various distances, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, one hundred, 
and one hundred and fifty miles from the scene of opera- 
tions ? 

XVII. And finally, whether, the deposition of O'Conally 
being incontrovertibly established as false, and he of course 
perjured, in the two vital points, — 

I. The universality of the plot, and 

II. The determination to massacre all who Avould not join 
in it, 

— there can be any credit whatever attached to the remain- 
der of his testimony ? And whether it does not necessarily 
follow, that the whole was a manifest fraud and imposture, 
designed to provoke insurrection, and lead to its usual and 
inevitable result, — confiscation ? 



Before the reader decides on answers to these queries, it 
is hoped he will bear in mind the strong facts adduced in 



APPENDIX. 243 

Chapter XX. to prove that the seventeenth century was, in 
the fullest sense of the word, the age of perjury, forgery, and 
fabricated plots. He will there see, that in London, the 
boasted courts of justice were at that period mere slaugh- 
ter-houses, where the depositions of men, stained and 
covered over with crimes of the most atrocious nature, as 
the leopard is covered with spots, were received without 
hesitation in cases where the lives of innocent men v/ere at 
stake, and were finally immolated. He will likewise behold 
the horrible fact, that the testimony of a man loliose perjury 
was detected in open court^ and there confessed hy Jdmself^ 
was afterv;ards admitted, and was the means of consigning 
innocent persons to the ignominious death of the gallows. 

Let him also bear in mind, that forged plots, supported 
by perjury, had been one of the regular and uniform 
machines of the government of Ireland, from the invasion 
to that period; and steadily from the Restoration in 1660, 
till the Revolution in 1688 ; and had produced the forfeiture 
of millions of acres. 

And further, let it not be forgotten, that all the writers. 
Clarendon, Carte, Warner, Leland, Gordon, etc., agree, that 
the grand object of the lords justices was, in the beginning, 
to extend the flames of civil war ; and, when the insurrec- 
tion had by these means become general, to prevent a cessa- 
tion of hostilities, for the purpose of producing extensive 
confiscations. 

With all these strong facts taken into view, I then invite 
a decision ; and entertain no doubt of a favorable verdict. 

On this subject I have no hesitation in pledging myself, 
that if any independent and upright judge or lawyer of any 
court in France, Germany, England, Scotland, Ireland, or 
the United States, will pronounce affirmative answers to the 
above queries, so as to imply a belief in the reality of the 
conspiracy, as deposed to by the '' Protestant gentleman," 



24:4 APPENDIX, 

alias ^^ servant^'* I "will cheerfully suppress this work, and 
consent to have it burned by the hands of the common 
hangman. 

[In the 28th chapter of his " Vindicim Hibernicm''^ (2d edition, 
1823), Mr. Carey proceeds, in the annexed manner, to dispose of 
the question, whether there was any massacre of Protestants in 
1641.] 

Was there really a Massacre of the Protestants in 1641 ? 

Unparalleled Exaggeration, 3Iore Protestants pretended 
to he killed than there were on the Island, Conclusive 
Evidence drawn from Sir William Petty, Cartels and 

JVarner'^s liefutation of the Legend, 

" Falsehood and fraud grow up in every soil, 
The product of all climes." — Addison. 

ALTHOUGH I have already in the first chapter incidentally 
touched on tlie numbers said to be massacred by the Irish 
in the insurrection of 1641, I think it proper to resume the 
subject, and go into it somewhat more at length, as it is a 
cardinal point in the vindication I have undertaken. 

In order to proceed correctly in the investigation, I sh?Jl 
let the accusers narrate their own tales, in order to ascer- 
tain what is the sum and substance of the allegations : — 

" The depopulations in this province of JSIimster do well 
near equal those of the whole kingdom !! ! " — Temple^ 103. 

" There being, since the rebellion first broke out, unto 
the time of the cessation made Sept. 15, 1643, which was 
not full two years after, above 300,000 Pritish and Protes- 
tants cruelly murdered in cold bloody destroyed some other 
way, or expelled out of their habitations, according to the 
strictest conjecture and computation of those who seemed 
best to undei^stand the numbers of English planted in Ire- 
land, besides those few which fell in the heat of fight during 
the warP — Ibid.^ 6. 

'' Above 154,000 Protestants were massacred in that 
kingdom from the 23d October to the 1st March following." 
— liapin, ix., 343. 



APPENDIX. 245 

^^ By some computations, those who perished by all these 
cruelties are supposed to be 150,000 or 200,000. By the 
most moderate, and probably the most reasonable account, 
they are made to amount to forty thousand ! if this extenu- 
ation itself be not, as is usual in such cases, somewhat ex- 
aggerated! " — Hume^ iii., 545. 

" A general insurrection of the Irish spread itself over the 
whole country, in such an inhuman and barbarous manner, 
that there were forty or fifty thousand of the English Protes- 
tants rmirdered^ before they suspected themselves to he in any 
danger^ or could provide for their defence, by drawing 
together into towns or strong houses." — Clarendon^ JE.^ II. 

That " Saul slew his thousands, and David his tens of thou- 
sands," was, in " olden time," sung by the women of Israel. 
Every Philistine was magnified into ten ; every ten into a 
hundred ; and every hundred into a thousand. But the 
amplifying powers of the Jewish women fade into insignifi- 
cance, when compared with those of the Anglo-Hibernian 
writers. Every Englishman that fell in battle, or otherwise, 
v/as murdered. Every man was magnified into a hundred ; 
every ten into a thousand; and every hundred into ten 
thousand. 

Such a spirit of exaggeration has prevailed, in a greater or 
less degree, in all ages. Even in common occurrences, 
hardly calculated to excite any interest, we find, every day 
of our lives, that the statements of current events are so 
highly colored, as to differ full as much from the reality, as 
the countenance of a meretricious courtesan, who has ex- 
hausted her stores of carmine and white lead, differs from 
the undisguised countenance of an innocent country damsel, 
Avho depends wholly on the pure ornaments of beneficent 
Nature. This being undeniably the case, on topics where 
no temptation to deception exists, how dreadful must be the 
falsehood and delusion in the present case, where ambition, 
avarice, malice, bigotry, national hatred, and all the othe 



246 APPENDIX. 

dii^e passions that assimilate men to demons, were goaded 
into activity ! 

In all other cases, but that of the history of Ireland, to 
convict a witness of gross, palpable, and notorious falsehood, 
would be sufficient to invalidate the whole of his evidence ; 
but such has been the wayward fate of that country, that 
the most gross and manifest forgeries, which carry their 
own condemnation with them, are received by the world as 
though they were 

" Confirmation strong as proofs of Holy Writ.'* 

Or, when some are found too monstrous to be admitted, 
their falsehood and absurdity do not impair the public 
credulity in the rest of the tales depending on the same 
authority. 

The materials for Irish statistics, at that early period, are 
rare ; a deficiency which involves this subject in considerable 
difficulty. Were correct tables of the population of Ireland 
to be had, the task would be comparatively easy ; and I 
could 2^ut down all those tales, with as much ease as I have 
stamped the seal of flagrant falsehood on the many impost- 
ures already investigated. 

But I avail myself of a sound rule, — to employ the best 
evidence that the nature and circumstances of the case will 
admit; and there are fortunately, some important data, on 
which to reason, in the present instance, and to shed the 
light of truth on this intrica/te question, and dispel the 
dense clouds with which it has been environed by fi?aud and 
imposture. 

Sir William Petty, the ancestor of the Lansdowne family, 
laid the foundation of a princely fortune in the depredations 
perpetrated on the Iirish, after the insurrection of 1641. Of 
course, he had no temptation to swerve from the truth in 
their favor; on the contrary, it was his interest, equally 



APPENDIX, 247 

with the other possessors of the estates of the plundered 
Irish, to exaggerate their real crimes, and to lend the coun- 
tenance of his reputation to their pretended ones. Hence, 
his testimony, on this ground, and as a cotemporary, cannot, 
so far as it tends to exonerate those upon whose ruin he raised 
his immense estate, be excepted against by the enemies of 
the Irish. I shall therefore freely cite him in the case : and 
the reader will at once perceive to what an extent delusion 
has been carried on this subject. 

He states the aggregate number of the Protestants who 
perished in eleven years, to have been 112,000; of whom 
" two-thirds were cut off by war, plague, and famine." It 
is obvious to the meanest capacity, — if, of 112,000, the whole 
number that fell in that space of time, two-thirds were cut 
off " by war, plague, and famine," — that those who fell, out 
of war^ in eleven years^ were only 37,000 ! I hope to prove, 
that even this statement, so comparatively moderate, is ex- 
travagantly beyond the truth. 

Sir William Petty confutes himself, beyond the j)ower of 
redemption. 

'^ Mark how a plain tale shall put him down." 

He bequeathed to posterity some statistical tables, which 
throw considerable light on this subject. They are very 
meagre, it is true ; but, meagre as they are, I believe there 
are no others ; at all events, I know of none : and must 
therefore avail myself of them. 

He informs us, that the population of Ireland, in 1641, 
was, 1,466,000 f^ and that the relative proportion of the 
Protestants to the Catholics was as two to eleven : f of 
course, it follows, that the population was thus divided : — 

* "This shows there were, in 1641, 1,466,000 people." — Petty. 

t For the present I admit this proportion ; as, however exaggerated the number of 
the Protestants may be, it does not affect the point at issue. But, from various ck- 
cumstances. it is doubtful whether there was one Protestant to eleven Roman Cath- 
olics. 



248 APPENDIX: 

about 1,241,000 Eoman Catholics, and 225,000 Protestants. 
From this conclusion there is no appeal. 

The supplies of people from England and Scotland, until 
after the final defeat, capture, condemnation, and death of 
Charles I., were inconsiderable:* and surely it is impossible 
for a rational being to believe, that out of 225,000, there 
could have been 112,000 destroyed, and the residue have 
been a,ble to baffle and defeat the insurgents, who comprised 
the great mass of the nation. It will therefore, I trust, be 
allowed, as an irresistible conclusion, that Sir William Potty's 
calculation, although, so far, more moderate than any of the 
" tales of terror " quoted at the commencement of this chap- 
ter, is most extravagantly overrated, probably trebled or 
quadrupled ; and must, of absolute necessity, be false. 

But even admitting it to be correct, what an immense dif- 
ference between 37,000 in eleven years — and the numbers 
so confidently stated by the various writers of Irish history ! 
What astonishment must be excited by Burton's 300,000, 
in a fev/ months ; Temple's 300,000, in less than two years ; 
May's 200,000, in one month; Warwick's 100,000, in one 
week ; or Bapin's 40,000, in a fev/ days ! Surely there is 
not, in the history of the v/orld, any parallel case of such 
gross, palpable, shocking, and abominable deception. Can 
language be found strong or bold enough to mark the dis- 
honor of those who knowingly propagated such falsehoods, 
or the folly or neglect of those who adopted and gave them 
currency ? Their names ought to be held up, as '' a hissing 
and reproach," to deter others from following in their foul 
and loathsome track of calumny and deception. 

On the subject of the number of victims of the pretended 
massacre, the observations of Carte -are so judicious and un- 
answerable, that they would be sufficient, independent of 

* More Protestants, it is highly probable, removed from Ireland durmg the progress 
of the war, than the nmnber of soldiers who were sent thither from England. 



APPENDIX. 249 

the other evidence I have produced, to put down- forever 
those miserable legends about so many hundreds of thousands 
of the Protestants cut off in a few weeks, or months or 
years, and to stamp on the foreheads of their authors the 
broad seal of imposture. He states that the extravagant 
numbers, asserted to be massacred, were ^^ raore than there 
were of JEnglish^ at thattinie^ in all IrelandP 

"It is certain, that the great body of the English was 
settled in Munster and Leinster, lohei'e very few murders 
tvere committed / and that in Ulster, which was the disraal 
scene of the massa^re^ there were above 100,000 Scots, who, 
before the general plantation of it, had settled in great num- 
bers in the counties of Down and Antrim : and new shoals 
of them had come over, upon the plantation of the six es- 
cheated counties : and they were so very powerful therein, 
that tlie Irish, either out of fear of their numbers, or some 
other politic reason, spared those of that nation, making 
proclamation y on pain of death ^ that no Scotsman should he 
molested in hody^ goods or lands^ wliilst they raged with so 
much cruelty against the English." — Carte^ I., 177. 

Ta these facts, he adds the following reflections : 

" It cannot therefore reasonably be presumed, that there 
were at most above 20,000 English souls, of all ages and 
sexes, in Ulster at that time ; and of these, as appears by 
the lords justices' letter, there were several thousands got 
safe to Dublin^ and were subsisted there for many months 
afterwards ; besides 6,000 women and children^ which Cap- 
tain Mervyn saved in Fermanagh ; and others that got safe 
to Derry, Coleraine, and Carrickfergus, and went from these 
and other ports into England." 

It is impossible to reconcile the latter part of these quota- 
tions with the rest ; a case, as we have repeatedly stated, 
that incessantly occurs ii\ Irish histories. The author in- 
forms us, on rational grounds, that there were " not more 
than 20,000 English in Ulster y' " that " several thousands 

got safe to Dublin; " that '^ G,000 women and children were 
11* 



250 APPENDIX. 

saved in Fermanagli ; " and that '^ others got safe to Derry, 
Coleraine, and Carrickfergus." These all-important and con- 
clusive facts he connects with a statement of "the extreme 
cruelty with which the insurgents raged against the Eng- 
lish," and with a notice of the '' dismal scene of pie massa- 
crcj'^ the subjects of which massacre are not very easily 
•found, and, at all events, could not have been very numer- 
ous : for, let us add together " several thousands," and 
"6,000," and the ''others" who "got safe" into the speci- 
fied towns, where there were numerous garrisons; where, of 
course, in a time of violence and commotion, the inhabitants 
of the circumjacent country would naturally seek refuge ; 
and where, it is not extravagant to suppose, that " the 
others," who thus " got safe," might have amounted to 
some thousands : let us then deduct the aggregate from 
20,000, the total number of English, and we shall find a 
slender remainder. But the plain fact is, that the writers 
on this subject are so haunted by the idea of a massacre, 
that although it rests on the sandy foundation of forgery 
and perjury, as shall be fully proved in the sequel, and al- 
though many of their own statements, in the most unequiv- 
ocal manner, give it the lie direct, their minds cannot be 
divested of the terrific object. These passages from Carte 
furnish a strong base in point. The most ardent friend of 
Ireland could not desire a much more complete proof of the 
fallacy of the accounts of the pretended massacre than is 
here given by this author himself, who, nevertheless, won- 
derful to tell ! appears to resist the evidence of his own 
facts, and to be blind to the obvious inference to which they 
inevitably lead. 

Ferdinando Warner, a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land, appears to have been the only writer v/ho has gone into 
any elaborate investigation of the legendary tales of the pre- 
tended massacre ; and his views of the subject will deserve 



APPENDIX. 251 

the most serious attention of the reader. After stating the 
uncertainty of the accounts, and the consequent difficulty of 
making an exact estimate, he pronounces a strong and une- 
quivocal sentence of condemnation on the Munchausen tales 
we are combating; and avers, that 

" It is easy enough to demonstrate the falsehood of the re- 
lation of every Protestant historian of this rehellion,'^'^ 

He proceeds to render a satisfactory account of the grounds 
on which this statement rests : 

" To any one who considers how thinly Ireland was^ at 
that time ^ peopled by Protestants^ and the p>TOvince of Ulster 
particularly^ lohere was th-e chief scene of the massacre^ those 

RELATIONS, UPON THE FACE OF THEM, APPEAR INCREDIBLE.' 

*' Setting aside all opinions and calculations in this affair, 
which, besides their uncertainty, are without any precision 
as to the space of time in which the murders were commit- 
ted, the evidence from the depositions in the manuscript 
above mentioned stands thus : — The number of people killed, 
upon positive evidence, collected in two years after the in- 
surrection broke out, adding them all together, amounts only 
to tico thousand one hundred and nine y on the reports of 
other Protestants, one thousand six hundred and nineteen 
more / and on the report of some of the rebels themselves, 
a further number of three hundred^' the whole making 
four thousand and twenty -eight. Besides these murders 
there is, in the same collection, evidence, on the report of 
others, of eight thousand killed by ill-usage : and if we 
should allow that the cruelties of the Irish out of war, ex- 
tended to these numbers, which, considering the nature of 
several of the depositions, I think in my conscience we can- 
not^ yet to be impartial we must allow, that there is no 
pretence for laying a greater number to their charge. This 
account is also corroborated by a letter, which I copied out 
of the council books at Dublin, written on the fifth of May, 
sixteen hundred and fifty-two, ten years after the beginning 
of the rebellion, from the parliament commissioners in Ire- 
land to the English parliament. After exciting them to 



252 APPENDIX. 

further severity against the Irish, as being afraid ^ their be- 
havior towards this people may never sufficiently avenge 
tlieir murders and massacres, and lest the parliament might 
shortly be in pursuance of a speedy settlement of this na- 
tion, and thereby some tender concessions might be con- 
cluded,' the commissioners tell them that it appears ' besides 
eight hundred and forty-eight families^ there loere hilled^^ 
hanged^ burned^ and droioiiedy six thousand and sixty-two,'^ " 
— V/^arner^ 297. 

Thus I close this subject with stating, that these hundreds 
of thousands are reduced by Carte to 20,000, less " several 
thousands " and' " 6,000 women and children," and " oth- 
ers;" and by Y/arner to about 12,000, of whom only 4,028 
were murdered ; a large portion of which detail, " in his con- 
science," he cannot allow ! Would it not be an insult to the 
reader, to offer another word, to prove the utter falsehood 
of all the terrific statements given of the subject, whereby 
the world has been so long and so grossly deceived ? 

[In a subsequent notice of these statements, Mr. Carey (chap, 
xxix., second edition) still farther exposes the falsehoods and exag- 
gerations of the Enghsh writers.] 

To establish the falsehood of these hideous portraits of 
cruelty, a few lines might suffice. Those lines Avould carry 
conviction. It would be enough to state the simple fact, 
that the originals were dra,wn by the miserable and aban- 
doned falsifiers, who have so long deluded the w^orld with a 
belief that there were 100,000 persons massacred in one 
week, 200,000 in a month, and 300,000 in two years; 
(whereas sir William Petty, as I have stated, makes the 
whole number that fell in eleven years^ by war^ plague^ farrh- 
ine, and massacre, 112,000, which I have proved extrava- 
gantly overrated ; and Warner, who had no partiality for the 
Koman Catholics, and who took more pains to investigate 
the subject than any other writer, either of the seventeenth 
or eighteenth century, reduces the number killed out of war 



APPENDIX, 253 

to 4,028 ; with which Carte's account appears to correspond ;) 
— who have recorded, that a general insurrection and massa- 
cre took place throughout the kingdom, on the 23d of Octo- 
ber, 1641, whereas three-fourths of it was, for entire weeks 
afterwards, in a state of perfect tranquillity ; — who have also 
recorded the falsehood, that Ireland enjoyed a sort of millen- 
nium for forty years previous to the insurrection, whereas 
she suffered, during that period, every species of the most 
revolting tyi'anny ; in a word, who are in almost every page 
of this work convicted of a total disregard of truth. All 
these stories were dictated by the same spirit of imposture ; 
penned by the same writers ; rest, of course, on the same 
authority; and the falsehood of those already discussed be- 
ing unanswerably proved, the residue must share the same 
sentence of condemnation. 

Temple, of all the writers whom I have quoted, is the only 
original author. His hook is one unvaried tissue of fables j 
of which he was himself so much and so justly ashamed, that 
he endeavored to suppress it / and actually refused permis- 
sion to the booksellers of London to 2^'i'^^l <^^ second edition.^ 
But his endeavors were in vain; it too much flattered the 
existing prejudices, — too much favored the views of those 
who unjustly possessed the estates of which the Irish were 
phmdered, to hope that it would be allowed to sink into ob- 
livion. 



* Extract of a letter from the earl of Essex, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, to Mr, 
Secretary Coventry. 

DUBLm Castle, Jan. 6, 1674-5. 
" I am to acknowledge the receipt of yours of the 22d of December, wherein you 
mention a book thai- was newly published, concerning the cruelties committed in Ire- 
land, at the beginning of the late war. Upon further inquiry, I find sir J. Temple, 
master of the rolls here, author of that boolj^ was this last year sent to by several 
stationers of London, to have his consent to the printing thereof. But he assures 
me that he utterly denied it ; and whoever printed it, did it without his Imowledge. 
Thus much I thought fit to add to what I formerly said upon this occasion, that I 
might do this (jentlenian right, in case it loas suspected he had any share uipub 
Ushing this itew edition.'''' 



254 APPENDIX. 

Carte's account affords a most striking display of the in- 
fatuation that prevails on this topic. The reader, in page 
378, will find that lie states, that the English were princi- 
pally settled in Leinster and Munster ; that there were few 
murders committed in those provinces ; that the insurgents 
spared the Scotch, who composed the great mass of the Prot- 
estant population of Ulster ; that there were not in that 
j)rovince more than 20,000 English ; that of this number 
" several thousands " escaped to Dublin ; that " 6,000 were 
saved in Fermanagh ; " that " others," not improbably thou- 
sands, found an asylum in three fortified towns : and yet this 
same historian, in the very same page, and at the distance 
of a few lines, pathetically and feelingly informs his readers, 
that rivers of blood loere shed ! ! and massacres perpetrated^ 
which it would he shocking to huraanity to repeat ! ! 

While stating these particulars, mixed sensations of as- 
tonishment and indignation are excited, which the reader 
may conceive, but which language cannot express. One is 
lost in the mass of reflections excited by this stupendous de- 
lirium of the human mind. It afibrds another instance of 
the gross and glaring contradictions so constantly found be- 
tween the dift'erent parts of the same history of Irish afiairs. 
It is an extraordinary fatality, from which even the very 
few whose intentions appear correct have not escaped. 

Of all the writers on this subject, there is none deserving 
of more tmqualified censure than Hume, He v/as under the 
influence of none of the dire passions that actuated some of 
the others. With a powerful mind and keen penetration, it 
was his duty to have examined carefully the credibility of 
his authorities ; and it required a very cursory examination, 
indeed, of Temple's history, to be satisfied that to quote it 
was an inefiable disgrace. Yet, astonishing to tell, out of 
forty-eight references, in his account of the pretended hias- 
sacre of 1641, there are no less than thirty-three to Temple, 
eleven to Rushworth, and only two each to Nalson and 
Whitelock. How utterly unworthy this procedure was of 
the talents and reputation of Hume ; how indelible a stain 
it attaches to his memory ; and how far, as resj^ects this in- 
dividual case, he is reduced to a level with the common race 
of historians, may be readily conceived, from the extracts 



APPENDIX. 255 

wliicli I shall produce from Temple's history. A large por- 
tion of the most horrible passages, for which he quotes that 
work, are grounded on hearsay testimony y w^hich is dis- 
tinctly stated in the depositions, and which therefore could 
not have been unknown to Hume, and ought to have for- 
bidden him to place the least dependence on their authority. 
But his offence is not confined to the original use of those 
" tales of terror." No : a much higher and more inexpiable 
one remains behind. Dr. John Curry published a work of 
transcendant merit, of which the title is " Historical and 
Critical Tie view of the Civil Wars of Ireland," in which he 
fully displayed the falsehood, and completely overthrew the 
narrative, of Temple. The peculiar characteristic of this 
work is, that almost every important fact it contains is sup- 
ported by the most indisputable authority, not merely in 
the form of reference, but generally by exact quotation. It 
may be safely asserted, that a more valuable historical work 
was never published. The author, in 1764, sent a copy of 
it to David Hume, then at Paris, with a request that he 
would give it a candid consideration, and correct the errors 
that he had committed, by his dependence on such a decep- 
tions guide as Temple. To this letter Hume sent an '' eva- 
sive answer ^^"^ * in which he declined committing himself by 
any promise ; and never, in any subsequent edition, cor- 
rected a single error in this part of his work. On this con- 
duct, there can, among upright men, be but one sentence 
pronounced, — a most unqualified sentence of reprobation. 



MR. FROUDE'S "RELIABLE AUTHORITIES." 

In a little volume, entitled a " Historical Memoir of the 
Irish Rebellion of 1641," (which O'Connor assigns to Di\ 

* Hume's "answer " was as follows : — "I am here at such a distance from my authori- 
ties, that I cannot produce all the arsjnments which determined me to give the account 
you complain of, \\'ith regard to the Irish massacre. I only remember I sought truth, 
and thought I found it. The insurrection might be excused as having hberty for its 
object. The violence also of the puritanical parliament struck a just terror mto all 
the Catholics. But the method of conducting the rebellion, if we must call it by that 
name, was certainly such, and you seem to own it, as deserved the highest blame, 
and was one of the most violent efforts of barbarism and bigotry united. D. H." 



2d6 appendix, 

John Curry,) published in London, as a reply to Harris's 
attack on Henry Brooke's " Trial of the Cause of the Catho- 
licSj" the author in his " Introduction " records his opinion, 
as given below, as to the credibility of Temple, Borlase, and 
Clarendon, all of whom are cited by Mr. Froude as '^ reliable 
authorities" on the subject of the " rebellion" of 1641 : — 

" The last of these writers breathes nothing but loyalty to 
the King, and indignation against both the English and the 
Irish rebels ; the first plainly intimates his affection to the 
rebels in England, and suffers just so much seeming loyalty 
to drop from his pen, as was necessary to his main design of 
blackening 'most ejfectually the Irish rebels y and as for Bor- 
lase, who has botched up what he calls a history, from jnl- 
fered parcels out of bothy he is a perfect mongrel, sometimes 
of one party, and sometimes of another; but ahvays incon- 
sistent with himself." 

In another part of the same Introduction the author of the 
" Memoir " says : — 

'' In order to show upon v/hafc goodly authority those 
slanderers have grounded their dreadful charge of cruelties, 
pretended to have been committed by the Irish rebels, . . . 
I will more particularly exhibit the characters of the original 
relators of them ; namely, Sir John Temple, Koger, first 
Earl of Orrery, and Dr. Edward Borlase, as they have been 
impartially drawn by that eminent Protestant historian, the 
Rev. Dr. Xalson [author of the ^ Historical Collections ']. 
That candid writer, after assuring us that ' the then Lords 
Justices of Ireland, Parsons and Borlase, did by their au- 
thority command many things which did not only exasper- 
ate, but Tender the Irish desperate,' adds : ' It is no less no- 
torious that Sir John Temple, in writing the history of this 
rebellion, was bound by confederacy to assert the proceed- 
ings of these Lords Justices ; and I cannot (says he) find 
him highly in reputation with the usurpers of the Parlia- 
mentarian faction, and by them empowered as a commis- 
sioner to impose^ upon the Protestant subjects of Ireland ^ that 
traitorous, disloyal, and solemn leagrto and covenant, which 



APPENDIX, 257 

was a direct oath of confederacy, not only against, but piir- 
j)Osely to ruin and destroy the king, the church, and the loyal 
party ; I cannot observe his hook to he printed in London^ hy 
puhlic allowance^ in the year 1646, at a time when no 
books were licensed, but such as made court to the prevail- 
ing faction of tlie usurpers, or which might be helpful to sup- 
port these cakimnies against his Majesty, especially as to 
the Irish Kebellion, — without a too just suspicion of his in- 
tegrity. 

*' ' The late Earl of Orrery cannot escape the like suspi- 
cion ; . . . nor is it possible to regard him as an impar- 
tial writer, who in the blackest of times rendered himself, 
by his services to the usurper (Cromwell), so notoriously 
conspicuous to the three kingdoms; being, during that gloomy 
scene, Lord President of Munster. And to instance another 
of his titles, though not so illustrious, he was agent for the 
fanatics established by Cromwell in the estates of those Irish, 
who, repenting of their folly, had served his Majesty against 
the English rebels. 

'^ ' As for Dr. Borlase, besides the nearness of his relation 
to one of the Lords Justices, and his being openly and 
avowedly a favorite of the faction, and the men and actors of 
those times, he is an author of such strange inconsistency, 
that his book is rather a paradox than a history ; and it 
must needs be so ; for (I know not by what accident,) the 
copy of the manuscript written by the Rt. Hon. the Eau of 
Clarendon, happening to fall into his hands, he has very 
unartfully blended it with his own rough and unpolished 
heap of matters ; so that his book looks like a curious em- 
broidery, sewn with coarse thread upon a piece of sack -web ; 
and, truly, had he no other crime but that of a plagiary, it 
is such a sort of theft to steal the child of another's brain, 
that may very well render him suspected not to he overstocked 
ivitli honesty and justice^ so necessary to the reputation of an 
ttnhlemished historian. But it is far more unlawful to alter 
the lawful issue of another man's pen, and thereby disable it 
from propagating truth, and to teach it to speak a language 
which the parent never intended. And yet this is the case 
in Dr. Borlase's history, in ivhich he has taken great pains to 
expunge some and cdter many p)cissages,'^ " * 

* '*Nalson"s "Historical Collections." Introduction. 



258 APPENDIX. 

The character of the "evidence" on which the stories 
of Temple and Borlase rest is thus detailed by the same 
wi'iter : — 

" Let lis, therefore,* by a word or two, try the depositions 
in Temple and his copier, Borlase, by the touchstone of 
Lord Anglesey and Dr. Pett. And, first, are the matters 
sworn in these depositions credible ? So far from it, that 
they are forced to have recourse to a miracle — (the appari- 
tion of hundreds of gliosis^ crying for vengeance on tire 
Irish !) to save some of them from appearing incredible and 
absurd ! Secondly — were the persons swearing credible ? 
They were, many of them, weak women and illiterate men : 
not capable of reading or subscribing their own depositions, 
and therefore apt to be imposed upon and deceived by those 
who read to them. A great number of them swore on mere 
hearsay. Some of them, atterwards, touched with remorse, 
solemnly declared the contrai-y of what they had sworn ; and 
they were all, at the time of making their depositions, either 
interested or malicious enemies to those against whom they 
made them. 

''Accordingly, at the trial of qualifications, at Athlone, 
(a court held by the regicides,) where the book called the 
' black-book,' which contained these examinations, was pro- 
duced, the same was so falsified in most particulars, as well 
by the witnesses themselves, who were pretended to have 
been duly sworn, as also by the persons said to have been 
murdered, ivho were then^ and are yet (says my author, 1G62) 
living ; that the said hook was, for sharney laid aside as no 
evidence. And several persons who had taken examinations 
touching these murders, have frequently since acknowledged 
the falsity of the matters published by them, as being had 
from the information of tfeose who, by the hurry of the 
times, and their own frights, were so transported, that they 
swore all their neighbors, whom they left behind them, were 
murdered ; whereas all, or most of them, were afterwards 
found living." 

Of the bloodthirsty readiness with which Sir Charles 
Coote entered upon the work of plundering and slaughtering 
the defenceless people, the evidence is given in a letter ad- 



APPENDIX. 259 

dressed by the Lords of the Pale '^ to the nobility and gentry 
of the County of Galway." This document, the author of 
the "Historical Memoir" states, was dated December, 1641, 
and received the 2d of February following, showing that 
previously that part of Ireland had taken no share in the 
insurrection ; while the manner in which those who did rise 
were goaded on is shown in the context. The writers say : 

" You, we are confident, with the same affliction, took 
notice with us to how little purpose we sat in Parliament ; 
when redress of our grievances must not only move first 
from, but receive the approvement of those wlio, commonly, 
were the authors of them. These, with the late demeanors 
of some ministers of the State, since tliis commotion, by 
cruelly putting to death some of his Majesty's subjects in 
the county of Wicklow, as also at Santry, and burning sev- 
eral gentlemen's houses and haggards, and taking away all 
their goods vnthoiit any other cause than that they were 
Catholics * as also the inhuman advice of Sir Charles Coote 
to the Lord Justices, to execute a general massacre upon all 
of our religion, which he offered to perform^ had the Council 
consented thereto, having induced us to enter into an asso- 
ciation, wherein we desire you will be pleased to join, that, 
with an unanimous consent, we may vindicate the honor of 
our sovereign, assure the liberties of our consciences, and 
preserve the f)-eedom of this Kingdom, under the sole obedi- 
ence of his sacred Majesty, whom God long preserve," etc. 



THE MASSACEE IN " ISLAND-MAGEE." 

In his ." Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland," the 
learned Dr. John Curry gives the following particulars re- 
garding the massacre of the Irish at '^ Island-Magee," by 
the English and Scotch Puritans of Carrickfergus : — 

" The report that his Majesty's Protestant subjects first 
fell upon and murdered the Roman Catholics, got credit and 
reputation, and was openly and frequently asserted," says 



260 APPENDIX, 

Jones, Bishop of Meatli^ in a letter to Dr. Borlase, in 1G79. 
And Sir Audley Mervyn, Speaker of the House of Commons, 
in a public speech to the Duke of Ormonde, in 1662, con- 
fesses, " that several pamphlets then swarmed, to fasten the 
rise of this rebellion upon the Protestants ; and that they 
drew the first blood." And, indeed, whatever cruelties may 
be charged upon the Irish, in the prosecution of this war, 
''their first intention, we see," says another Protestant 
voucher, (Warner, '' Hist. Irish Hebellion^^ p. 47,) " went 
no further than to strip the English and the Protestants of 
their power and possessions, and, unless forced to it by 
opposition, not to shed any blood." Even Temple confesses 
the same ; for, mentioning Vv'hat mischiefs v/ere done in the 
beginning of this insurrection, he says : " Certainly, that 
which these rebels mainly intended at first, and most busily 
employed themselves about, was the driving away the Eng- 
lishmen's cattle, and possessing themselves of their goods." 
(Temple's '' Irish Hehellion,'^'') 

In a MS. journal of an officer in the King's service, 
quoted by Mr. Carte ('' life of Ormonde j"^"* vol. i.), w^herein 
there is a minute and daily account of everything that hap- 
pened in the North of Ireland during the first weeks of this 
insurrection, there is not even an insinuation of any cruel- 
ties committed by the insurgents, on the English or Protes- 
tants, although it is computed by the journalist ''that 
the Protestants of that province had killed near a thousand 
of the rebels, in the first week or two of the rebellion." 
And, on the 16th of November, 1641, "Mr. Eobert ^Vall- 
bank came from the North, and informed the Irish House 
of Commons, that two hundred of ftie people of Coleraine 
fought with one thousand of the rebels, slew six of them, 
and not one of themselves hurt. Tliat, in another battle, 
sixty of the rebels were slain, and only two of the others 
hurt ; none slain." (lournals of the Irish Commons^ Ap- 
pendix.) Nor do we find, in this account, the least men- 
tion of cruelties then committed by the Irish; but much of 
the success and victory of his Majesty's Protestant subjects, 
as often as they encountered them.* 



* Loland, in his ^'•History of Ireland^'' vol. iii., p. 101, says: "It was deter- 
mined (by the insurgents, in the beginning of the insurrection) that the enterprise 
should be conduct'Cd, in every quarter, with as little bloedshed as possible." 



APPENDIX, 261 

That a great number of -unoffending Irisli were massacred 
in Island-Magee, by Scottish Puritans, about the beginning 
of this insurrection, is not denied by any adverse writer that 
I have met with. An apology, hov/ever, is made for it by 
them all, which, even if it were grounded on fact, as I shall 
presently show it is not^ would be a very bad one, and seems, 
at least, to imply a confession of the charge. Those writers 
pretend that this massacre was perpetrated on those harm- 
less people, in revenge of some cruelties before committed, 
by the rebels, on the Scots, in other parts of Ulster. But as 
I find this controversy has been already taken up by two 
able Protestant historians, who seem to differ about the time 
in which that dismal event happened, perhaps by laying be- 
fore the reader the accoiuits of both, with such animadver- 
sions as naturally arise from them, that time may be more 
clearly and positively ascertained. 

A late learned and ingenious author of a history of Ire- 
land (Leland) has shifted off this shocking incident from No- 
vember, 1641 (in which month it has been generally placed), 
to January following, many weeks after horrible cruelties 
(as he tells us) had been committed by the insurgents on the 
Scots in the North. ''The Scottish soldiers," says he, 
" who had reinforced the garris'on of Carrickfergus, were 
possessed of an habitual hatred of Popery, and inflamed to 
an implacable detestation of the Irish, by multiplied accounts 
of their cruelties. In one fatal night they issued from Car- 
rickfergus, into an adjacent district called Island-Magee, 
where a number of the poorer Irish resided, unoffending and 
untainted loith the rehellion. If we may believe one of the lead- 
ers of this party, THIRTY FAMILIES were assailed hy 
them, in their beds, and massacred with calm and deliberate 
cruelty. As if," proceeds the historian, " the incident were 
not sufficiently hideous. Popish writers have represented it 
with shockino: aojsjravation. Thev make the number of the 
slaughtered, in a small and thinly inhabited neck of land, to 
amount to three thousand, a wildness and absurdity into 
which other writers of such transactions have been betrayed ; 
they assert that this butchery was committed in the begin- 
ning of November, 1641, that it was the first massacre com- 
mitted in Ulster, and the great provocation to all the out- 
rages of the Irish in this quarter. Mr. Carte seems to favor 



262 , APPENDIX. 

this assertion ; had he carefully perused the collection of 
original depositions now in the possession of the Univers: tj 
of Dublin, he would have found his doubts of facts and 
dates cleared most satisfactorily ; and that the massacre at 
Island-Magee, as appears from several unsuspicious evi- 
dences, was really committed in the beginning of January, 
when the followers of O'Nial had almost exhausted their 
barbarous malice." * (Hist, of Ireland, vol. iii.) 

Before I examine the several particulars of the foregoing 
account, I must observe that the objection taken from the 
smallness of the place, as if it were incapable of containing 
three thousand inhabitants, is grounded on a misapprehen- 
sion of some circumstances in this event. For the Irish 
that were destroyed consisted not only of the inhabitants of 
the place, but also, and for the greatest part, of the country 
people residing in its neighborhood, who, upon the invita- 
tions of Colonel Chichester and Sir Arthur Tyrringham, had 
fled to Carrickfergus for protection, on the first eruption of 
these tumults. " The town of Carrickfergus," says Mr. 
Carte, " was then the place of the greatest strength in the 
North ; and as Colonel Chichester and Sir Arthur Tyrring- 
ham had, on the evening of the 23d of October, received 
intelligence of Hhe insurrection, they immediately, by beat 
of drum and kindling of fires, apprised all the country people 
round them of their danger ; so that the poor country people, 
who had not yet stirred, flocked to that place continually, 
with all they could carry of their substance " (another temp- 
tation to commit the massacre), " in such multitudes of men, 
women, and children, that the town was over thronged." 
The same author also informs us, that " Colonel Chichester 
and Sir Arthur Tyrringham invited several of the most emi- 
nent of the Irish thereabouts, who yet remained quiet in 

* Sir Phelim O'Neil. This assertion has no other foundation than the depositions 
in the Univer^iity of Dublin. What credit is due to these we shall just now see ; but 
if any regard at all-is to bs had to such of them as have been carefully selected from 
the rest and published by Temple and Borlasc, in their histories of this rebellion, we 
shall find some of them vouching the contrary of this relation, viz., that Sir Phelim 
CNeil did not order the cruelties he is charged with ordering till many weeks after 
Januar}-, 1041. For by Captain Parkin's examination, " Sir Phelim began his mas- 
sacres a/7cr his flight from Dundalk." (Temple, p. 85.) Now his flight from Dun, 
dalk, according to Carte, did not happen till about the latter end of March following. 
i^"- Life of Ormonde^'''' vol. i.) 



APPENDIX. 263 

their houses, to come to Carrickfergus for security ; who ac- 
cordingly went thither, hut loere made jy^f^soners on their 
arrival, "^^ 

And because it is allowed that Mr. Carte seems to favor 
the assertion " that near three thousand innocent Irish were 
massacred in Island-Magee, in the beginning of November, 
1641," it is but just to produce the reasons which appear to 
have inclined him to that way of thinking, by inserting the 
passage at large, wherein they are contained : — 

"On the 15th of November," says this well-informed 
writer, " the rebels, after a fortnight's siege, reduced the 
castle of Lurgan ; Sir William Bromlow, after a stout de- 
fence, surrendering it on the terms of marching out with his 
family and goods; but such was the unworthy disposition 
of the rebels, that they kept him, his lady, and children, 
prisoners, rifled his house, plundered, stripped, and killed 
most of his servants, and treated all the townsmen in the 
same manner. This," adds he, "was the first breach of faith 
which the rebels were guilty of in these parts (there was 
then no other insurrection in any of the other parts of Ire- 
land), in regard of articles of capitulation ; for, when Mr. 
Conway, oif November the 5th, surrendered his castle of 
Bally-aghie, in the county of Derry, to them, they kept the 
^erms for which he stipulated, and allowed him to march 
out with his men, and to carry away trunks with plate and 
money in them. Whether," proceeds Mr. Carte, " the slaugh- 
ter made by a party from, Carrickfergus^ in the territory 
of Magee^ a long narrow island, in which, it is affirmed, that 
near three thousand harmless Irish men^ wonien^ and children 
were cruelly massacred^ happened before the surix3nder of 
Lurgan, is hard to be determined ; the relations published 
of facts, in those times, being very indistinct and uncertain, 
with regard to the time they were committed, though it is 
confidently asserted that the said massacre happened in this 
month of November." 

Let us now try these difierent accounts by the only sure 
test of dates and facts. It is confessed on all hands that 
the chiefs of the insurgrents, throu^rh fear of the Scots in 
Ulster, C who," as the Earl of Clanrickarde informs us, 
" were forty thousand well-armed men, when the rebellion 



264: APPENDIX. 

commenced," at tlie same time that the rebels were, at least, 
by half less numerous, and furnished with few better weapons 
than '' staves, scythes, and pitchforks,") published a procla- 
mation '' forbidding their followers, on pain of death, to 
molest any of the Scottish nation, in body or goods." Tem- 
ple acknowledges that " this proclamation was, for a time, 
observed ; " and from Mr. Wallbank's report, already men- 
tioned, to the House of Commons, of the constant success 
of his Majesty's forces in defeating the insurgents in different 
parts of .Ulster, from the 23d of October to the 16th of 
November following, we may reasonably suppose that it 
was at least observed till that day, for it is surely in the 
highest degree improbable that these chiefs would, at any 
time before, have wantonly provoked the resentment of so 
formidable a body of men, by any cruel outrage or hostile 
act. But it is unquestionably evident, that the Scots in 
Ulster did some remarkable execution on the Irish, several 
days before the 15 th of JSTovember, the day on which 
Lurgan was surrendered. For Sir William Parsons, in a 
letter from Dublin, of the 13th of that month, to the Earl 
of Clanrickarde, acquaints him, as with a welcome piece of 
news, that 'HLe Scots did hold the northern Iji^ish hard to 
it, having killed some of them." And Sir William St. 
Ledger, grudging, as it were, the Scots the honor of that 
action, told the Earl of Ormonde, on the 14th, that, " had 
it pleased God that his lordship had been there with his 
hundred horse, and himself to wait upon him, the Scots 
should never have had the honor to put such an obligation 
on Ireland." 

From hence, I think, may fairly be deduced the only rea- 
son, why the behavior of the insurgents to Sir William 
Bromlow, on the 15th of November, was so very different 
from that which they had before shown to Mr. Conwa}^, on 
the 5 th of the same month, viz. : because the massacre in 
question was perpetrated on their innocent, unoffending 
people, in that interval of time ; which, no doubt, provoked' 
them to the above-mentioned breach of articles at the sur- 
render of Lurgan, and to several other acts of injustice and 
cruelty in the prosecution of this war. 

The deduction now made is so agreeable to dates and 
facts, that I am surprised to find this first breach of articles 



APPENDIX. 265 

by the insurgents ascribed to any other cause ; especially to 
•one v;hich appears manifestly repugnant to both. This 
cause, we are informed, was the repulse, defeat, and slaughter 
of a considerable body of the rebels at the siege of Lisburn, 
by a Scottish garrison stationed there ; for thus the before- 
cited history relates the immediate effects which that disas- 
ter produced in these rebels : " But such success " (of the 
Scots) " w^as attended with consequences truly horrible ; the 
Irish, incensed at resistance, carried on their hostilities v/ith- 
out faith or humanity. Lurgan was surrendered by Sir 
William Bromlow, on terms of security to the inhabitants, 
and permission of marching out with his family, goods, and 
retinue ; but all v/ere instantly seized, and the whole town 
given up to plunder." Thus have we a cause plausibly as- 
signed, which did not exist until many days after its sup- 
posed effect was produced. For the defeat and slaughter of 
the rebels at Lisburn, or, as it was then called, Lisnegarvy, 
did not happen, according to Borlase, till the 28th Novem- 
ber; but Lurgan, as we have seen, was surrendered to them 
on the 15th of that month, thirteen days before. 

Let us now see upon what grounds this massacre in 
Island-Magee is transferred from November, 1641, to the be- 
ginning of January following. One would expect to find an 
assertion so singular supported by some solid, or at least 
plausible proof; but instead of meeting with any such, in 
the place before quoted from this history, we are only there 
directed to look out for it (where certainly it never can be 
found) in the collection of original manuscript depositions 
now in the possession of the University of Dublin. But we 
shall presently demonstrate the insufficiency, not to say fu- 
tility, of proofs drawn from these depositions."^ And, in 
truth, if they were to be admitted as proofs, or evidence in 
any degree, there is hardly anything so incredible or absurd, 
that might not, with equal reason, be obtruded upon us for 
genuine history. Every suggestion of frenzy and melan- 
choly ; miraculous escapes froin death, visions of spirits 
chaunting hymns ; ghosts^ rising from rivers, brandishing 

* " Any one (sa5^s Mr. Carte) who has ever read ^e examinations and depositions 
here referred to, which were generally given upon hearsay, and contradicting one 
another, would think it very hard upon the Irish, to have all those, without distinc- 
tion, to be admitted as evidence." 

12 



266 APPENDIX. 

swords, and shrieking revenge, would have a just and ra- 
tional title to our belief, having ^ all of iliem^ received the 
sanction of these vouchers. 

The original depositions in the possession of the University 
of Dublin considered.^ 

I shall now briefly consider the nature of that evidence 
which has hitherto induced so many people, learned and un- 
learned, to give, or ^t least seem to give credit to those hor- 
rible relations of murders and massacres which have been 
imputed to these insurgents ;— evidence that, in itself, is 
so manifestly futile, contradictory, or false, that I am per- 
suaded every person of common sense would be ashamed to 
produce the like upon any ordinary occasion. 

The evidence I mean is that huge collection of manu- 
script depositions (consisting of thirty-tAvo folio volumes) 
which are said to have been sworn, on the subject of the out- 
rages and depredations committed by the insurgents, in this 
war, and are now in the possession of the University of 
Dublin. From this enormous heap of malignity and non- 
sense^ Temple and Eorlase have selected, such examinations as 
appeared to them the least exceptionable^ and consequently the 
most likely to obtain credit to their horrible narrations. To 
these, therefore, I shall refer the reader as a select specimen 
of the rest: after I have submitted to his consideration what 
Dr. Warner (v/ho, it seems, underwent the drudgery of per- 
using and examining the w^hole collection) has left as his 
opinion of it. " Besides the examinations," says he, 
'' signed by the commissioners, there are several copies of 
others, said to be taken before them, which are, therefore, of 
no autliority ; and there are many depositions taken ten years 
after^ lohich are still less authentic. As great stress," adds 
the Doctor, '' has been laid upon this collection, in print and 
conversation, among the Protestants of Ireland ; and as the 
whole evidence of the massacre turns upon it, I sj^ent a great 
deal of time in examining these books ; and I am sorry to 
say, that they have been made the foundation of much more 
clamor and resentment than can be warranted by truth and 
reason." * 

♦ Cunyb ** Review of the Civil Wars in Ireland" (1610), Chap. IV. 



APPENDIX. 26 T 

'■' There is one circumstance in these books, not taken no- 
tice of by any before me, which is, that though all the ex- 
aminations signed by the Commissioners are said to be upon 
oath, yet in infinitely the greater number of them, the words 
* being duly sworn,' have the pen drawn through them, with 
the same ink with which the examinations are written ; and 
in several of those where such v/ords remain, many parts of 
the examinations are crossed out. This is a circumstance 
which shows, that the bulk of this immense collection is 
parole evidence ; and what sort of evidence that is, may be 
easily learned by those who are conversant with the common 
people of any country, especially when their imaginations 
are terrified, and their passions heated by sufferings. Of 
what credit are depositions worthy," adds he, " (and several 
such there are,) that many of the Protestants, that were 
drowned, were often seen in erect postures in the river, and 
shriekins: out revensje ? " * 

At the same time that Dr. Warner rejects the deposi- 
tions now in the possession of the University of Dublin, he 
informs us, " that he has, in his own possession, a choice and 
duly attested copy of such of these examinations only, as 
were taken on oath ; which," says he, '' demonstrates the 
falsehood of the relation in every Protestant history of this 
rebellion.^'' Had the Doctor favored the world with a pub- 
lication of these choice examinations, or even an abstract of 
them, we should then be in some measure able to judge of 
their authenticity ; whereas at present we have only his bare 
word for it. However, from an anecdote which he himself 
has related, concerning the first real and original examina- 
tions, we may fairly conclude that his favorite copy of them, 
however well attested, deserves not a jot more credit than 
those which he has already so justly condemned. That 
anecdote imports, '' that soon after the Restoration, when the 
claims in favor of innocents were canvassed, and the House 
of Commons desired, that none of those whose names could 
be found in the depositions, might be heard, relating to such 

*" Hundreds of ghosts of Protestants'- (says Temple, from these depositions), 
" that were drowned by the rebels at Portnadown bridge, tcere see?i i7i the i^iver hoU- 
npright, cuid were heard to cry out for revenge on these rebels. One of the ghosts 
was seen with hands lifted up, and standing in that posture, from the 2dth of Decem- 
ber to the latter end of the following Lent ! '' 



26S • APPENDIX. 

claims of innoceucy ; the Duke of Ormonde, thougli no friend \ 
to the Irish, for good reasons rejected the proposaL The 
Duke," adds he, '' probable knew too much of these exam- 
inations, and the methods used in procuring them, bo give 
them such a stamp of authority ; or otherwise it would have 
been the clearest and shortest proof of the guilt of such as "^ 
were named in them." 

Upon this occasion, I submit it to the consideration of 
every candid and intelligent reader, whether depositions 
found insufficient to convict the persons, or confiscate the 
properties of the Irish then living, ought to be now deemed 
proper and competent evidence to impeach the characters 
or princi|)les of their innocent descendants, at that time un- 
born ? or whether any person now existing can be thought 
to be so well qualified, either by want of jDartiality to the 
Irish, or by the knowledge of their case, to judge of the 
weight or futility of that evidence, as the Duke of Ormonde 
was, at that j uncture ? And, conscious of this material de- 
fect in the original examinations, with what probability of 
success could Dr. Warner rely on his own copy of them, how 
well soever attested, as capable of ascertaining the facts, 
which he has so confidently related out of it? * * j 

[The able and painstaking author of '' The Cromwelhan Settle- j 
.ment of Ireland" ('Mr. John P. Prendergast), whom Mr. Froude 
himself quotes as a most reliable historian, in the second edition of J 
his work (London, 1870) makes the followhig observations on the ^ 
evidence relied on by the English fabricators of the massacres of j 
1G41.] 

'' The proper evidences to prove or disprove this dreadful 
massacre are, of course, authentic contemporaneous docu- 
ments — not compilations of a later age, like Hume's ' His- 
tory of England,' or even the ponderous pamphlets of party 
writers of the day, like Milton and Clarendon, strangers to 
Ireland and its transactions. 



* Warner himself confesses, "that so many of the rebels' sayings to their Protes- 
tant and English prisoners, which are recorded even in the choice manuscript collec- 
tion of depositions in his custod}', are so ridiculous, incredible, or contradictory to 
one another, as show plainly, that they spoke what their own or different passions of a 
their leaders prompted them to."" 



APPENDIX, 269 

'' There is one document that ought to be decisive in this 
case and it would have been so if the English of Ireland 
were not interested enough, and the English of England 
prejudiced enough, to propagate and perpetuate any cal- 
umny, to the damage of the fame and national character of 
the people of Ireland, It is the following : Just two months 
after the outbreak, the Government^ issued a Commission 
under the Great Seal, to seven despoiled Protestant Minis- 
ters, to take evidence upon oath ^ to keep up the memory of 
the outrages committed by the Irish to posterity.' 

'• The Commission, dated 23d of December, 1641, Vv^as, 
in its original form, to take an account of losses. It was 
amended, on the 18th of tTanuary^ 1642, to include murders. 
So that this was an after-thought ; a thing scarce possible, if 
there had been a general massacre. The first Commission 
recites ^ that many British and Protestants have been sep- 
arated from their habitations, and others deprived of their 
goods ; ' the Commissioners are accordingly to examine upon 
oath, concerning the amount of loss, the names of the rob- 
bers, and what traitorous speeches were uttered by the rob- 
bers or others. The second adds, ' And what violence was 
done by the robbers, and how often, and what numbers 
have been murthered, or have perished afterv/ards, on the 
way to Dublin or elsewhere.' And the remonstrance shows 
that the outrages, in spite of the Commissioners' attempt 
to present the most terrible pictures, were, for the most 
part, only such as necessarily followed the stripping the 
English and driving them from their possessions, as these 
planters had driven the Irish from theirs, thirty years be- 
fore ; and that the murders were fewer than have occurred in 
similar insurrections, where of course some would be slain 
resisting the pillagers of their homesteads. The Commis- 
sioners seem vmconscious of any general massacre. The 
murders they record are the occurrences of four months, 
collected from different parts of Ulster. In the few in- 
stances where any numbers were slain, some of them at 
least were plainly acts of war, — though the Commissioners 
would have them supposed to be cold-blooded murders, — 
and occurred late in December. So far therefore from war- 
ranting the supposed extensive massacre of the English, 
this official account disproves it, and shows how baseless is 



270 APPENDIX, 

Clarendon's story of forty thousand or fifty thousand Eng- 
lish murdered before they knew where they were, or of an 
incredible number of men, women, and children promiscu- 
ously slaughtered in ten days, as he elsewhere has it ; or of 
one hundred and fifty -four thousand, or three hundred 
thousand, massacred in cold blood. The letters of the Lords 
Justices during the first months of the rebellion are equally 
silent concerning any massacre ; and their Proclamation of 
8th February, 1642, while it falsely charges the Irish with 
the design, says it had failed. All the accounts of the time 

are full of the crowds driven out, not murdered 

'• Bishop Bedel, of Kilmore, remained in his palace unharm.- 
ed, his flocks untouched, surrounded by crowds of English 
that fled thither as to a port of safety, and lay in his barns 
and stables, and even on hay in the churchyard. Thither 
fled the Bishop of Elj^hin and a train of Boscommon exiles, 
and there he enjoyed such a heaven upon earth for three 
week^, that he would willingly have endured another Irish 
stripping to enjoy again such holy converse. For the Irish 
never hindered these two Bishops and their poor flocks from 
using their religious exercises,'*' though their own was made 
a crime ; and seven priests, reprieved by the King, were 
hanged in England at this time, at the angry demand of the 
House of Commons, simply for saying Mass. In November, 
an Irish priest arrived at Bishop Beclers to conduct them to 
Dublin. The Bishop of Elphin and the rest departed, leav- 
ing Bedel and his family behind. Bedel died there in Feb- 
ruary, 1642, and the Irish paid him honor by firing over his 
grave. His family continued there unmolested until the 15th 
of June, 1642, when they joined a party of 1340 English, that, 
by treaty with the Irish, were escorted safely to Sir Henry 
Tichborne's garrison at Drogheda. Of the Bishop of Elphin's 
company not one miscarried, nor was a thread of the gar- 
ments that Bedel gave the stripped English touched by the 

rebels on their way Bedel is always represented to 

have died a prisoner, though he was only removed for a 
fortnight to the neighboring Castle of Cloughouter, by order 
from Kilkenny, on the advance of an English force, and 

* Life of Bishop Bedel, by his son-in-law, Alexander Clogy, Minister of Cavan. 
London, 1862. 



APPENDIX, 2Y1 

then restored to his son-in-law's house. In like manner Sir 
Phelim O'Neil is handed down by history as the murderer 
of Lord Caulfield, his neighbor in the country, and friend in 
Parliament. Yet he treated him and his family with great 
care when he surprised the fort of Charlemont, on the 23d 
of October, 1641 ; and there Lord Caulfield was kept until 
the 14th of January, 1642, when he was s^t.with an escort 
towards Cloughouter Castle, by a similar order, (probably 
from Kilkenny,) to that which brought Bishop Bedel thither. 
They were to rest the first night at Sir Phelim O' Neil's 
Manor of Kynard (now Calledon) ; but as Lord Caulfield 
was entering the gate, he was shot in the back by Edmund 
O'Hugh, a foster-brother of Sir Phelim, and thus murdered 
in the absence and without the knowledge of Sir Plielim. 
That Sir Phelim liad no part in this murder is certain ; for 
he was sorely distressed at it, and had O'Hugh committed 
to Armagh jail for trial for the murder: but he escaped; 
whereupon Sir Phelim had the sentry hanged for his conniv- 
ance or neglect." 



FROUDE'S FALSITIES. 

WHAT THE AUTHOR OF " THE CROMWELLIAIN' SETTLEMENT OF 
IRELAND" SAYS OF THEM. 

. [In the annexed letters, addressed to the press of Ireland and 
America, by Mr. Prendergast, author of " The Cromwellian Settle- 
ment of Ireland," that gentleman convicts Mr. Froude not only of 
circulating historical falsehoods long since proved to be such, — but 
even of suppressing facts which have been distinctly brought under 
his (Mr. Froude's) notice; in order to present to his readers a false 
and distorted view of the action of the English (and in particular of 
Cromwell) towards the Irish people and their clergy. ] 

Sandymount, Dublin, JSfov. 5, 1872. 
Sir, — Mr. Froude, I believe, is lighting a fire that he has 
little conception of. Deep as our hatred has hitherto been, 
at our unparalleled historic wrongs, it is as nothing to the 
intense detestation we shall hereafter hold the English in. 
Though the vile English press are unwilling to commit 
themselves to the support of Mr. Fronde's crusade against 
the exiled Irish until they see the success of it, it is easy to 
perceive hov/ they sympathize with it, and how gladly they 
would see the Americans hate us as deeply as they do them- 
selves. For, in truth, the self-imposed mission of this friend 
and lover of Ireland (God save ns from our English lovers ! ) 
is to turn the Americans against us. With hypocritical flat- 
tery he pretends to seek American opinion. " We ourselves 
are at our wit's end," he says. " If America will counsel 
England what to do, she will listen gratefully. And if a 
time is ever to come when Celt and Saxon are to live side 



APPENDIX. ' 273 

by side iii peace and in quiet, it will be when America tells 
the Irish that they must depend for the future on their own 
industry." America has become the Supreme Court of 
Appeal, he says, with English hypocrisy ; and he asks 
their judgment. But he has already renounced it! Sup- 
pose America should say : " Try our Constitution ; give 
Ireland a Federal Union ; make her a State like one of the 
States of our Union." Oh, no ! Even if that be necessary 
to Ireland's happiness, England, he tells them beforehand, 
will not do it. '^ She will not commit political suicide by 
any measure that might tend to separation." 

What he wants, then, is judgment in England's favor, and 
against Ireland. 

His language is that of the hypocrite, and there is 
poison under that tongue. A more calumnious harangue 
than his lectures cannot be conceived. 

He admits the brutal cruelties of the English, but repre- 
sents them as called forth by the still gi-eater crimes of the 
Irish. Witness his approval of Cromwell's massacre of the 
inhabitants of Drogheda, together with the flower of the 
English veterans fighting under the King's commission; I 
leave out the Irish soldiery. But is it come to this, that 
the killing of ladies, women, girls, and inijocent children, 
which was the sport of Cromwell's soldiers for two whole 
days, is to be approved of by Englishmen at this time of 
day? 

He (Mr. Froude) did not think it so cruel as the oppres- 
sion and lawlessness which brought misery into every poor 
man's cabin. It is plain he knows little of the history of that 
time. But were what he states as true as it is false, would 
that justify such a deed ? 

It is such deeds that bring English power to be hated 
and finally overthrown everywhere. This very massacre of 
Cromwell's works at this day. It makes us loathe the name 
12* 



274 APPENDIX. 

of Englishman as the incarnation of cruelty. It might 
terrify temporarily; but it fixed National hatred perpet- 
ually. 

Look at the rebellion of 1798. The English intrusted the 
Orangemen with the bayonet, and that favorite instrument 
of theirs for spreading their power — the cat-o'-nine tails. 
The rebellion was put down, but they have left a hatred 
that will never be put down. So in India, in the late mu- 
tiny. Their floggings, killings, hangings, burnings, blowing 
away from guns, have left such hatreds that the English 
there live in anticipation of another outbreak, and the 
wounds made in 1857 will never heal. 

Mr. Froude is now reopening every old wound, and Eng- 
land may perhaps have to curse the day when the cold- 
blooded hypocrite was born. Listen to him describing his 
love for the Irish. '' They either," he says, " attract strongly 
or repel strongly." Him they attracted ! During the last 
thirty years he has been thrown (that is, he has thrown him- 
self) much amongst them. He has spent his college vaca- 
tions, when a young man, wandering in the mountains. 
He has lived in peasants' cabins for months together. He 
was once overtaken by illness in the wilds of Mayo, and '' the 
poor creatures," he adds, with English contemptuousness, 
'' treated me with a tenderness I can never forget." And 
well this viper repays their kindness by slandering the na- 
tion ; out-slandering, indeed, all our former maligners — and 
that is no easy task. 

Who made this man our judge ? He «eems possessed of a 
devil that gives him a supposed dominion over Ireland. 
Ireland has put money into his purse. In his ten long vol- 
umes, his few chapters on Ireland have given the greatest 
charm to his work. The subject, though old, is ever new 
and fresh, like the people. He is still determined to make 
money of us. But now he advances beyond the domain of 



APPENDIX. 275 

past history; he sets himself up as our censor, and the 
guide of America in her opinion of the Irish. 

That he will rue his conduct I have no doubt. I have 
never yet seen any one undertake the running down of Ire- 
land that did not bring his own reputation to ruin. The 
conscience of the world revolts secretly against the cruel in- 
justice of the deed. 

But, be this as it may, Mr. Froude has done what can 
never be undone. 

No Irisliman will ever rest satisfied till he is freed from. 
the misery of living under a people who, though they know 
that the strongest feature in the character of the Irish is 
their national feeling, yet seek to depreciate the nation with 
a watchfulness that never sleeps and a malignity that never 
tires. 

The reputation this man has acquired as a historian 
only serves him the better to slander the Irish. I do not 
believe he can have made any search into the original 
sources of any period but that period which his history 
treats of. If he has, nothing but reckless hatred of the Irish 
could induce him to represent them as cowards — to repre- 
sent 200,000 well-drilled Irish, imder Ormonde, as driven, 
like chaff, before Cromwell and 18,000 English ! 

The English of Ormonde's army refused to fight as com- 
rades v^^ith the Irish. "When Cromwell appeared before the 
walls of some towns held for the King, the English garri- 
sons opened their gates and gave up their officers — their 
English ofiicers — to be hanged; All the English garrisons 
of Munster revolted from Ormonde when Cromwell was at a 
distance, and kept them for Cromwell at his approach. At 
Hathmines, the treachery of some of the English regiments 
who went over to Col. Michael Jones, the Parliamen- 
tarian Governor of Dublin, in the middle of the battle, 
helped mainly to cause Ormonde's defeat. The Scottish 



276 APPENDIX, 

Presbyterians, another part of Ormonde's supposed 200,000 
men, were equally indisposed to figiit as faithful comrades of 
the Irish. And the troops of the late Catholic Confederates, 
— little else but a sudden levy of a mass of peasants, — had 
no heart to fight under commanders of English blood and 
interest, though Catholic in religion, who were ready to, be- 
tray the cause rather than it should become a national con- 
flict, the only thing that could have rallied the Irish. 

The Ulster Irish, called '' the Nunciotists," were the only 
body who maintained the cause of Ireland for Ireland's sake. 
Thus the discipline of these troops of Ormonde is as untrue 
as the numbers stated by Mr. Froude. Let us pass, then, 
from this slanderer's charge against the Irish of cowardice 
(and let all Irishmen, whether their coats be red or green, 
or blue or black, note it), to the equally false charge he 
makes against our fathers of a massacre. The Irish Catho- 
lics, it seems, rose and massacred an unarmed crowd of 
38,000 confiding and unsuspecting Protestants ! '^ The valet 
that helped to undress his master over night, stood with a 
pike by his bedside in the morning." This sensational draw- 
ing, when once indulged in (and Froude, Macaulay, and Car- 
lyle have all sacrificed truth and honesty to this vicious 
taste), overpowers all the better feelings. 

There was no massacre. It was not a rising of Catholics 
upon Protestants, but of an oppressed nation against their 
tyrants, in the interest of their rightful King. Mr. Froude 
defends us from the charge of murdering 150,000. On the 
best computation, says this friend of the Irish, it was only 
38,000. 

'• ' An open foe may prove a carse, 
But a pretended friend is worse ! '* 

I have, in the Second Edition of the ^'Cromwellian Set- 
tlement," appealed to the collection of outrages and murders 



APPENDIX. 277 

made by order of the English House of Commons in March, 
1642, under a Koyal Commission, composed of seven de- 
spoiled Protestant ministers, for the purpose of damning us 
all to posterity, for disproof of this supposed massacre. 
And I confidently rest the case upon it. I have read, I 
think, all the papers of the time, and the result of all is the 
same. 

But enough of this. The lie will be repeated — this and 
a thousand daily national insults will be our fate — until that 
which happened in the case of America happens in Ireland. 
T am old enough to remember when the insulting of the 
Americans (not long escaped from the yoke) was nearly as 
much the sport of the English as taunting the Irish (still 
under it) is now. But from the time of the success of the 
Americans in their war against the Mexicans, it ceased. As 
soon as they became weak again (or were supposed to be 
weak), during the Jate civil war, the insolence and brutality 
of the English burst forth again. Then it all subsided again 
when the Northern States were victorious, and the English 
became so mean as to submit to be judged by the three ex 
■post facto rules of International Law, and to submit to an 
Award by Arbitrators, in order to cover their shame in 
paying that fine for their insolence which they saw the 
Americans were resolved to exact, and these once proud 
English did not dare to refuse. 

As soon as the Irish are feared, they will be honored by 
this brutal, this repulsive people. — Your obedient servant, 

John P. Prendergast. 



Sandymount, Dublin, 11 th Nov., 1872. 

Sir, — Some persons may think the language of my letter 

of the 5th of this month, concerning Mr. Froude, too strong. 

Perhaps they will deem it too weak, as I do, when they have 

read his book called *'The English in Ireland in the Eigh- 



273 APPEJSfDIX, 

teentli Century." At the time I wrote I had only seen the 
account of his speech at Delmonico's, upon his reception, and 
the abstract of his first lecture. Since I have read his book 
I would wish to alter one phrase. I would withdraw the 
term " Cold-blooded hypocrite," and substitute " Blood- 
thirsty fanatic." His lectures give no measure of the malig- 
nity of his book. The man seems to be absolutely possessed, 
filled with demoniac hate. There is nothing in the world 
like his present efibrt except Peter the Hermit's preaching 
the Crusade. His thirst for the destruction of the Irish is 
only equalled by the zeal of the Crusadei^s against the Infi- 
dels. If he could, he would raise against the Irish the cry 
of " Hep ! Hep ! " to which thousands of Jews throughout 
Europe were massacred. He aims at agitating and rousing 
both England and America against us. He has laid the 
fuel here for rebellion and civil war, and he then crosses 
the Atlantic to secure, if he can, the assistance of America 
towards our subjection. Their acquiescence is all he asks. 
" It will be worth twenty batteries of cannon to the Eng- 
lish," he says. If this is not his purport, words have no 
meaning. No Southern planter, infur.iated at the prospect 
of his slaves acquiring their freedom, or the Spartans, mad- 
dened at the resistance of the helots, can be more demon- 
like than this Froude. " Cromwell ! " '' Cromwell ! " " Crom- 
well ! " is the beginning, middle, and ending of his book, his 
dream, his aspiration. " Leave them to us ! oh, leave the 
Irish to our tender mercies, and the Avorld shall see Crom- 
wellian rule re-established in that accursed land ! " This is 
his prayer. It is the old story of the Spartans seeking and 
getting the aid of the Athenians to keep the helots of Sparta 
in subjection. Twice did Athens help Sparta to bring back 
the helots under the Spartan cat-o'-nine-tails. And well 
was Athens repaid, when some years later Sparta reduced 
the Athenians to slavery, and the Spartan army surrounded 



APPENDIX, 279 

Athens with bands of music playing, for greater triumph 
to themselves and indignity to her, while they forced her 
own sons to take down the city walls. They even talked .. 
of sowing the ground where the city stood with salt! It 
remains to be seen what course the Americans will take. 
Let no one deem my language too heated till they have read 
Froude's book. If I mistake not, it will be translated into 
many languages. I trust it may. The world will then begin 
to form some notion of the character of the race the Irish 
have had to deal with. I shall fearlessly await the judg- 
ment of mankind. His book smells of blood. Every hor- 
rible dream of the enraged, the terrified English of 1641 is 
reproduced under pretence of an answer to my defence of 
the Irish against the false charge of the stupendous massacre 
of 300,000 or 38,000 Protestants, or less, as this kind friend 
and lover of the Irish suggests, by the Papists. The one 
number is as false as the other. It is nothing to the pur- 
pose (as an answer) to show that at Portadown numbers of 
Protestants, varying, according to different accounts, from 
60 to 200, were butchered in December, 1641, or that many 
were massacred in the same month at Lisgool Castle, in the 
county of Fermanagh. The latter was a siege ; those at 
Portadown were prisoners. The war of "no quarter," on 
the part of the English, had begun. 

The killing of women and children by the Irish, where 
true, is horrible (in many instances the reports are perfectly 
false), but it is far less horrible than the same crime author- 
ized by Sir Charles Coote and other English commanders 
in this war, as in the wars of Elizabeth's day, mentioned by 
Froude himself. Bat be the stories against the Irish in 
this respect true or false, it is no answer to my denial of 
the appalling account of the massacre, unless it were of num- 
bers, amounting to thousands, which is not pretended. But 



280 APPENDIX. 

it serves Mr. Froude's purpose of spreading war and blood 
again. 

I remember well, the first time I appeared in the Four 
Courts Library after publishing the "Cromwellian Settle- 
ment," that one of her Majesty's counsel addressed me, 
^'Why, Prendergast, I hear you deny the Irish rebellion of 
1641 ! " Much of Mr. Froude's parade of murders is about 
as little to the point as my learned friend's idea of my argu- 
ment — 

^* Whose notions fitted things so well, 
That which was which he could not tell, 
But oftentimes mistook the one, 
For t'other, as great clerks have done." 

Mr. Fronde, however, is not so stupid. He knows well 
enough that tlie question is, ''Was there a massacre in 
Ulster, of thousands, at or shortly after the outbreak of 23d 
of October, 1641?"' It is remarkable that, often as the 
Iri^h had before been forced into rebellion or war, no such 
national crime was ever alleged against them. Mr. Froude 
makes the priests and the Catholic religion to be at the root 
of the massacre. He has been to the returns of the Com- 
mission of the seven despoiled ministers, made in March, 
1642, for inflaming the English of that day, and reproduced 
now by Mr. Froude for the same purpose at this day. From 
thence he takes Bishop Jones's tale of a great meeting of 
monks at Multifarnam Abbey, in the county of Westmeath, 
where the project of a massacre was said to be debated. 
The tale is that of an informer, incredible to those who 
know the history of tliat time, and are familiar with the 
tales that were then coined and credited, or pretended to he 
credited. But, says Mr. Froude, the Irish priests themselves 
admitted that 150,000 Protestants had been murdered by 
their Popish parishioners. Froude, in his kind feeling for 



APPENDIX. 281 

the Irish whom he so loves^ does not believe in the numbers : 
he believes in 38,000 or even less, and finally says that the 
mind was incapable of making any rationed computation 
because of the terror, but that the numbers were enormous ; 
and the priests had themselves to blame for being the 
authors of this frightful tale. But suppose it should turn 
out that English Protestants and not Irish 23riests were the 
authors of this 150,000 Protestants massacred ? Well, the 
tale will still pass current under Mr. Fronde's brilliant 
painting, and the efforts of the poor defender of the defamed 
Irish and their priesthood will not be regarded or even 
heard. Now, what is the foundation of this tale? A 
passionate friar named O'Mahony urged the native Irish 
to continue the war with the English rather than accept 
the peace (afterwards known as the peace of '46) on terms 
he deemed derogatory and ruinous. Those terms their 
Catholic leaders, of English blood, were determined to ac- 
cept, and they cauvsed O'Mahony's book, called " Disputatio 
Apologetica," printed in Latin at Frankfort, in Germany, 
to be publicly burnt. " Fight on," said O'Mahony ; " you 
have already slain 150,000 of your enemies, the heretics 
[i.e. English], in these four or five years, since 1641 to the 
time of my writing this work, in this present year, 1645. 
Your foes have publicly proclaimed it in their printed 
declarations ; you yourselves do not dispute the fact, and 
as for myself, I believe they have lost even more. I only 
wish we could say, aZ^." There is no need of wasting time 
in comment on this piece of evidence. It is a sample of 
the kind of proofs used in every part of this controversy. 

Sir John Temple is another witness of Mr. Fronde's. 
"Sir John Temple," he sa^^s, "considered that 150,000 
perished in two months (that is, by the end of December, 
1641) and 300,000 in two years." This is from his " Irish 
Rebellion," a book published in 1646, for the purpose of pre- 



282 APPENDIX. 

venting tlie peace tlien on the point of being signed, and to 
hinder any peace at any future time between the English 
and Irish, as Sir John Temple expressly declares. Yet Sir 
John's own letter of 12th December, 1641, to the King, 
given by Mr. Froude, because he thinks it will lead ordinary 
readers to accept it as proof of the astounding massacre, 
proves the contrary. He prints the passage he relies on 
in italics. It is this : — " Many thousands of our nation are 
already perished " (page 105 in note). Is this proof of a 
massacre? Does it not even contradict the statement in 
his book of 150,000 being dead at this time, not by mas- 
sacre, but through fatigue, famine, disease, and in other ways. 
But what are all these horrors, supposing them to be 
true, to the acts done by the orders of legitimate authority ? 
The manner of English war in Ireland has ever been to 
massacre women and children. 

" My manner of dealing " (says Sir Henry Gilbert) '' was, 
I slew all those from time to time that did belong to, feed, 
accompany, or maintain any outlaws or traitors, and after 
summoning any fort or castle, if they did not immediately 
yield it, I would not afterwards take their surrender, but 
won it perforce, how many lives soever it cost, putting mcm^ 
ivoman^ and child of them to the sword ^' being of opinion that 
no conquered nation will ever yield willingly their obedience 
for love, but rather for fear." 

This is from Mr. Froude's ^'Elizabeth," 10th volume, page 
507. The year is 1569. 

Are the acts of Irish j)easants at all equal in atrocity to 
the murders done by order of the Parliament of England 
(only that '' Parliament can do no wrong "), in drowning 
the King's Protestant soldiers, taken at sea coming at the 
King's orders to his aid in England ? If they were Irish, 
even thouofh Protestants and valiant servitors aojainst the 
Confederate Catholics, they were to be tlirown overboard; 
and 70 soldiers of Colonel Willoughby's regiment, all 



APPENDIX, 283 

Protestants, and many women, being taken by a Parliament 
ship on their passage to Bristol in 1644, were so dealt with 
(Proclamation of the Supreme Council of Confederate Cath- 
olics, July 6, 1644; Carte Papers, vol. xi.. Public Pecord 
Office, Ireland). I should not venture to offer any Catholic 
document for proof (for it would not be believed by Mr. 
Froude), only that the fact is confirmed by the correspond- 
ence of Protestants who, of course, never tell lies (though 
Mr. Eroude himself admits the magnifying 38,000 or less 
into 150,000), and that the fact is confirmed by the Marquis 
of Ormonde and the public and private correspondence of the 
day. The English made a boast of it. Captain Swanley (honor 
to the English navy !) tied the men in pairs, back to back, 
and flung them into the sea at Milford Haven. The weekly 
papers were merry over it. One said, '^ that Captain Swan- 
ley took six score " (they swelled the butchers' bill to make 
it more delightful to the English taste for blood) '' English- 
Irish and sent them a-fishing to the bottom of the sea." 
Another said '' that Captain Swanley made those Irish 
drink their bellies' full of salt water." Another "that 
Captain Swanley made those who would not take the Cove- 
nant take the water with their heads downward." Another, 
" that the Captain made trial if an Irish cavalier could swim 
without hands." (Mercurius Aulicus for May 16, 1644J p. 
983.) And Captain Swanley received the thanks of Parlia- 
ment and a chain of gold worth 200^. 

There is here no mention of w^omen^ though they may 
have been drowned. For, after the defeat of the king at 
ISTaseby, more than 100 women, some of them the wives of 
English Poyalist officers, were cut to pieces ; and the excuse 
was, that they were believed to be Irishwomen, wives and 
followers of soldiers of the King's Irish army. But there is 
no time, no need for multiplying instances. I must pass to 
the massacre at Drogheda by Cromwell : — 



284 APPENDIX. 

" The Irish histories say " (sp^ys Mr. Fronde) " that there 
was an indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and chil- 
dren. Cromwell's own account " (he continues) '' mentions 
only men in arms, and priests, v/ho, as having been the insti- 
gators of. the worst crimes, were held less innocent than 
those who had committed them. Jt is possible, he adds, 
that in such a scene women and children may have been 
accidentally killed ; but there is no evidence of it from an 
eye-witness, and only general rumors and reports at second- 
hand. Of authentic evidence," (he continues,) ^' in addi- 
tion to Cromwell, two letters, one of them from a loyalist, 
disprove conclusively the story of a general massacre. A 
printed official list of the officers and soldiers slain at the 
storming of Drogheda, supplied to the Parliament, brings 
the number to nearly 3,000, besides many inhabitants. 
These citizens " (says Mr. Froude) "fought by the side of 
the troo2os and shared their fateP ('^ English in Ireland in 
the Eighteenth Century," p. 124, note.) 

The proofs, however, of a general massacre are only too 
numerous to quote. The Marquis, of Ormonde, in the same 
work, says, " Cromwell outdid himself," that it recalled the 
" massacre and tortures of the early Christians, and the 
cruelties of Amboyna." I never heard it disputed by any 
one who had read history, except Carlyle, Mr. Froude's* 
model. The great question in dispute is, '' Did they massa- 
cre after promising quarter ? " He says there is no evidence 
of any massacring of loomen and children from an eye-wit- 
ness. So far is this from the truth, that there is an account 
by an eye-witness and actor in no less common a book — a 
book in constant use, namely, in Anthony Wood's " Athe- 
n?e Oxonienses." The account is to be found in the auto- 
biography of Anthony Wood, given in the preface to Bliss's 
edition of the '^ Athen8e,"m four volumes quarto. Anthony 
Wood's eldest brother, Thomas Wood, Master of Arts of the 
University of Oxford, was a captain in Colonel Henry In- 
goldsby's troop at the siege of Drogheda, '' and returned " 



APPENDIX, 285 

(says Anthony Wood) ''from Ireland to Oxford for a time to 
take up the arrears of his studentship at Christ Church." 
It Avas the winter after the siege. " At which time, being 
often with his mother and brethren," says Anthony Wood, 
*' he was wont in the v.dnter evenings to tell them of the 
most terrible assaulting and storming of Drogheda, wherein 
he himself had been engaged." He told them, continues 
Anthony, '' that 3,000 at least, besides women and children, 
were, after the assailants had taken the town, put to the 
sword on the 11th and 12th of September, 1649." He 
told them " that when they (the soldiery) were to make their 
way up to the lofts and galleries in churches, and up to the 
towers whither the enemy had fled, each of the assailants 
would take up a child and use it as a buckler of defence as 
they mounted the steps to keep themselves from being shot 
or brained. After they had killed all in the Church of St. 
Laurence, they went into the vaults underneath, where all 
the flower and choicest of the women and ladies had hid 
, themselves. One of these," he continues, '' a most hand- 
some virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, kneeled 
down to Xhomas Wood with tears and prayers to save her 
life ; and he being struck with a profound pity, took her 
under his arm and went out of the church with intentions to 
let her shift for herself, but a soldier perceiving his inten- 
tions, thrust his sword up her fundament." (Keason will 
be shown before I have done for using Anthony Wood's 
dreadful language.) What (it will be said) must have been 
Captain Thomas Wood's horror to find this beautiful, trem- 
bling creature, who trusted to his protecting arm, thus cruel- 
ly and inhumanly butchered by this brute of an Englishman, 
as she leaned upon him v/hile getting up the steps of the 
vault ? Of course he struck him, in hori'or and disgust, 
with the flat, if not with the edge, of his sword ? Hear 
Anthony Wood's account of what his brother told him. 



286 APPENDIX. 

" Whereupon Captain Wood, seeing her gasping, took her 
money, jewels, etc., .and flung her down over the works!" 
In other words, this English officer and gentleman, and Mas- 
ter of Arts of the University of Oxford, turned upon this 
jDOor tortured creature, robbed her, and flung her alive, over 
the walls of Drogheda! But ''those citizens of Drogheda 
fighting beside the troops necessarily shared the fate of the 
Irish soldiery." '' It is possible that in such a scene women 
and children may have been accidentally killed ! " Was 
this lovely girl, whose beauty and elegance disarmed even 
her furious conqueror, accidentally killed ? Was the trem- 
bling crowd of terrified ladies of thfe best quality, that, like a 
herd of hurled deer, had sought shelter in the vaults under 
St. Laurence's church, and were there massacred — were 
these ladies and their children citizens fighting beside the 
troops ? 

" There is no evidence of an indiscriminate massacre of 
men, women, and children from an eye-witness, only general 
rumors and reports at second hand." Is not Captain 
Thomas Wood's account the account of an eye-witness ? 
And are the cotemporaneous printed letters of the Marquis 
of Ormonde to the King mere general rumor and report at 
second-hand? But what will be thought of Mr. Froude's 
candor and conscientiousness when it is known that he had 
in his hands, at the time of publishing his book, the evi- 
dence of Captain Thomas Wood and the letter of the Mar- 
quis of Ormonde, extracted in handwriting? For Mr. 
Froude having written to a friend of mine to know if there 
was anything beyond Irish rumor for the story of a general 
massacre, my friend sent the letter to me at Oxford, whence 
I furnished him with the extracts, and they were by him 
sent to Mr. Froude. I had quite forgotten it till after I had 
written the greater part of this letter. His high commen- 
dation is given to this massacre ; for he not only adopts the 



APPENDIX. 287 

language of his hero, but glories in the deed, and vaunts it 
at this hour. " I am persuaded," wrote Cromwell (it is 
from Froude I quote), " that it is a judgment of God upon 
these wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much 
innocent blood, and that it will tend to prevent the effusion 
of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for 
such actions, which otherwise could not but work much re- 
morse and regret." How utterly mistaken this infallible 
hero of Mr. Froude was, the tenor of Mr. Froude's whole 
book is enough to show. Mr. Froude immediately proceeds 
with this commentary : — 

" History, ever eloquent in favor of the losing cause — • 
history, which has permitted the massacre of 1641 to be for- 
gotten, or palliated, or denied — has held up the storming of 
Drogheda to execration. The English, ever ready, when 
confronted with similar problems in India or elseivhere " (the 
italics are mine), '' to use the same on lighter occasions, yet 
make a compromise with their consciences, and, when the 
severity is over, and the fruits of it in peace and order are 
gathered and enjoyed, agree usually or always to exclaim 
against the needless cruelty. The Irish insurrection had 
cost nearly 600,000 lives, etc., etc The Drog- 
heda garrison suffered no more than the laws of war per- 
mitted ; and the wisdom of making a severe example was 
signally justified in its consequences. Happier far would it 
have been for Ireland, if, forty years later, there had been a 
second Cromwell before Limerick." 

There is not time nor space to show the reckless audacity 
of his statements of the prosperity he supposes to have fol- 
lowed Cromwell's rule in Ireland during that tyrant's life- 
time. The whole is an argument for the restoration of the 
naked sword as the sole instrument of English rule in Ire- 
land. The book, I say again, smells of gore, as if he were 
athirst for Ilish blood. Ever since Carlyle restored the 
worship of Moloch in the person of Cromwell, the English 
nation i^icem like famished tigers eager for blood.. We re- 



288 . APPENDIX, 

member how Froude's pattern (and no doubt, patron), Car- 
lyle, accompanied by a body of English ladies, went to 
Southampton to welcome and sustain Governor Eyre, arriv- 
ing from Jamaica stained with women's blood — the blood of 
v/omen indecently and most cruelly flogged by Englishmen 
bearing the name of soldiers and sailors. I never see an 
officer's coat now, but I think of its being dyed with woman's 
gore. Behold them flogging women in Jamaica with the 
thongs of the "cat" — the " English cat " — interlaced with 
piano wire ! although the executioners (it is true) flung 
them down, and called for the navy " cat " when it was 
found that the wire " cat" was killing the women. They 
could not bear it. " They took down my clothes (said one 
of the women) to my middle ; after flogging me, they rub- 
bed in pickle ; I was in the family-way, and very sick after 
it." Let me repeat it : Froude and his school (I fear they 
represent the English nation) have a lust for blood. The 
shrieks of tortured prisoners writhing under the accursed 
" English cat " sound sweet to their ears. The universal 
call for " stamping out," the " severity is Mercy " doctrine, 
so popular, all denote the English lust for blood. Who can 
forget the oft-repeated demand for the accursed " English 
cat" to be made the punishment for Fenians? This fero- 
cious Froude, favorite of the English world, fondly appeals 
to the doings of the English in India as a fit model for the 
treatment of the Irish. He alludes to the orders and prac- 
tice of General James George IS'eill. He ordered that all 
those engaged on the rebellion (not the murderers of the 
women and children at Cawn2)ore) should lick up the dried 
blood of the murdered before being hanged, thereby to add 
the certainty of hell after death to their present torments. 
" Each miscreant, after sentence of death (so runs this devil- 
ish order of 26th of July, 1857), will be taken down to the 
house in cpiestion under a guard, and be forced into cleaning 



APPENDIX. 289 

up a small portion of the blood-stains. The task -will be 
made as revolting to his feelings as possible, and the provost- 
marshal will use the lash in forcing any one objecting to 
complete the task." This was the grand object aimed at — 
the use of the blessed " English cat." " The first culprit 
(it is General Neill who writes) was a native officer of the 
6 th Infantry — a fat brute — a very high Brahmin. (The 
charge against him being rebellion against the English; 
not that he had hp.d any share in the massacre.) He ob- 
jected, when down came the lash, and he yelled aloud. He 
wiped it up all clean and was then hujig." (And thus ought 
the Fenian prisoners, as I have heard it said in England, 
been made to wash the foul hospital linen and clean the 
privies of the English felons.) " A great man, some days 
after, a Mahommedan officer of our Civil Court," continues 
General Neill, '' a leading man in the rebellion (not massa- 
cre) was brought in with others. He rather objected, was 
flogged, and made to lick part of the blood with his tongue." 
Now who would have ever expected to hear God's name 
mixed up in this bloody business ? But here it comes. " I 
will hold my own with the blessing and help of God^"^ adds 
General -ISreill ! Is it Moloch that fed on blood, the god of 
England, he is calling on ? "I cannot help seeing his fin- 
ger in all this " (the General adds in conclusion) ; '^ we 
have been false to ourselves so often." 

It was this flogging with the '' cat " — the English " cat " 
— that was the sport and joy of the army and of the navy 
represented by Peel's brigade of sailors of the ship " Shan- 
non." An officer who was there told me, that one native offi- 
cer, immediately on being sentenced to death, ran to the floor 
and licked up the defiled and defiling dust, then rushed to 
the gallows that stood by, and put the noose round his own 
neck. But Peel's men were not thus to be cheated of their 
enjoyment. They dragged him back from the gallows to the 



290 APPENDIX, 

triangles, j3ogged him frightfully, made him lick the floor, 
and only then hanged him. Mr. Eroude also justifies the 
blowing away Hindoos, and of course the Irish, from the 
guns, if found necessary for the maintenance of English 
tyranny — if such a word as '^ tyranny " is known now. 

Elas any one a conception of the scene of such an execu- 
tion ? I lately heard of a letter from the spot. An Irish 
officer (they have not the pluck of the English, we are told) 
spoke with horror of the struggle of the victims with the 
soldiers who seized them, and in spite of their screams, and 
contortions tied them to crosses of wood, and these they 
placed standing before the muzzles of the guns, steadied by 
ropes stretching from the arms of the cross to the wheels of 
the gun-carriages. When fired, the blood, limbs, and en- 
trails flew about, and one head at least flew back among the 
ranks of the soldiers. 

Mr. Eroude, in denying the massacre of women and chil- 
dren (with what truth and candor may be now left to the 
judgment of the unprejudiced), relies upon Cromwell's state- 
ment as mentioning among the slain only men in arms and 
priests. These Mr. Eroude boldly states to have been the 
instigators of the Vv^orst crimes, and as less innocent than 
those that committed them, to have been justly massacred. 
That Mr. Eroude will find plenty of charges against priests 
of having committed atrocities in the rebellion of 1641, I 
know. I have read more of their crimes in this rebellion, 
or war, than most men ; far more than Mr. Eroude ever has 
read, or will read. I am not of their religion ; but this I can 
say, that I have never, to my recollection, found any of these 
charges substantiated. The more horrible the details of the 
imputed crim^, the more quickly is the judgment made cap- 
tive through the imagination ; though the opposite ought to 
be the course. Yet, often have I found some terrible impu- 
tation against priests end in an act of benevolence, carefully 



APPENDIX, 291 

screened by their adversaries behind a mass of horrid imput- 
ed details that are left imbedded ^ as it were, in the memory, 
the good deed so hid as to be forgotten. Let any one in 
search of instances read the lately published Life of " Bishop 
Bedel," by Alexander Clogy, the bishop's son-in-law, com- 
panion of his father-in-law in his so-called imprisonment, 
and the account written by Bedel's son, only published 
within the past year. I am probably, in this, doing a disser- 
vice to these ecclesiastics, for every vile imputation will be 
caught up to be repeated, their good deeds kept back. 

This leads me naturally to a subject connected witli the 
treatment of the Irish priesthood by the English at a later 
period, that can scarcely be handled without indelicacy. 
But I have made a covenant with myself that I will for the 
future be deterred by no personal considerations, by no mis- 
placed modesty, in this great conflict with the tyrants and 
maligners of Ireland and the Irish. For have they not sent 
forth their standard-bearer (unless it be true that he has 
gone forth of his own demoniac design, as he says,) to the 
ends of the world to rouse the English race against us ? Last 
year, Avhen I had occasion to treat of Cromwell's massacre at 
Droghcda, modesty made me suppress the gross language of 
Anthony Wood in giving an account of the death of the tort- 
ured, murdered virgin. His plainer, coarser terms leave a 
never-to-be-forgotten image. I should hesitate now to touch 
what I must treat in plain language but for the necessity of 
the case, and because Mr. Froude has already done so. I nov/ 
proceed. It is two or three years since I was applied to to 
know what authority there was for the story related by 
Plowden, that the same penalty that v^'as inflicted on Abe- 
lard, had, in the year 1723, been actually decreed by both 
Houses of Parliament in Ireland (so far as their limited 
power enabled them) against every priest in Ireland who 
should not quit his country by a certain day. For many 



292 APPENDIX. 

years I had searched in vain. I remember consulting 
Coxe's /^ Life of Walpole," as he was said by Plowden to 
have stopped the bill at the intercession of Cardinal Fleury. 
It was stated by Plowden that the Commons presented the 
bill to the Lord Lieutenant (the Duke of Grafton) on the 
15th of November, at the Castle, and that they most ear- 
nestly requested his Grace to recommend the same in the 
most effectual manner, to his Majesty's goodness, and that 
by his Grace's ^'zeal for the Protestant interest the same 
might be permitted to pass into a law." ^As the public rec- 
ords have now been thrown open to the public by the in- 
tervention of Lord Romilly, the Master of the Polls, so that 
what was previously accessible only at an enormous cost, and 
in many cases not at all, I determined to ascertain, if possi- 
ble, the truth. Taking up the printed journals of the House 
of Commons of the year 1723, I found that a bill " To Pre- 
vent the Further Growth of Popery" had passed through all 
its stages, and that it was agreed that the Speaker, with the 
House, should attend the Lord Lieutenant and desire it 
might be transmitted to England, and effectually recom- 
mended by the Lord Lieutenant to be allowed to pass into a 
law, just as stated by Plowden. I forthwith (it was on the 
23d February, 1869) proceeded to the Parliamentary Pec- 
ords, then under the care of Sir Bernard Burke, the keeper 
of State papers (they have since been removed to the public 
record office), and after some search among the draughts of 
Heads of Bills, I found the paper wanted. It was what 
lawyers call, in the case of depositions taken in Chancery, 
the " dominical " — that is to say, the rough original manu- 
script of the bill on paper, in the form of a barrister's 
brief. It was interlined, passages roughly scored out, 
and slips of paper containing stringent provisions w^ere 
attached by black and red wafers here and there to the mar- 
gin. Among the many provisions against unregistered 



APPEJSIDIX. 293 

priests, there was one making it death, without benefit of 
clergy, with forfeiture of lands and goods as in high treason, 
for any one to give a mouthful of bread or a glass of water 
to any unregistered bishop, priest, or monk returning into 
Ireland after he had once been banished ! 

There were also heavy penalties against unregistered 
priests saying Mass. Several persons had on examinations 
before justices of the peace, says the preamble, confessed that 
they had heard Mass by priests suspected to be unregistered, 
yet by the arts and contrivances of the priests, who fre- 
quently had a curtain drawn between them and their con- 
gregation, no discovery could be made of the person saying 
Mass, that it might appear whether he was duly qualified to 
say Mass. For the future, therefore, the officiating priest 
was to appear with his face bare, under heavy penalties, and 
the door of every chapel was to be kept open, that the 
Cromwellian squireen riding by might see the priest's face. 
If found shut, the chapel was to be shut up forever, and all 
persons present to be heavily fined. But I in vain looked 
for the enactment recorded by Plowden. I accordingly 
made a return to my inquirers that I was now satisfied, as I 
had long before suspected, that it was an invented tale. 
Just two years after, however, happening to take up a vol- 
ume in manuscript containing entries of the letters of the 
Lord Lieutenant and Council for the year 1719, amongst the 
papers in the State Paper Department in Dublin Castle, I 
found that the whole was perfectly correct as stated by 
Plowden, except in two particulars, one that he had mis- 
taken the year, the other that he supposed the penalty to be 
general for all priests, instead of being confined to unregis- 
tered priests. The following is the letter referred to : — 

'' Council CnA^iBEB, Dublin Castle, 

'' 2Wi of Aurjust, 1719. 

" My Lords — We herewith transmit to your Excelkndes 



294 APPEBJDIX. 

the following bill : — ' An Act for Securing the Protestant 
Interest of this Kingdom by further amending the several 
Acts of Parliament made against Papists, and to Prevent the 
Growth of Popery.' The heads of this bill arose in the 
House of Commons, who, being sensible (as the truth is) 
that there are now more unregistered Priests and Popish 
Archbishops, Bishops, Jesuits, Priars, and others exercising 
foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction in this kingdom than ever 
heretofore, notwithstanding the many laws against the same, 
found it impossible to prevent that evil otherwise than by 
subjecting persons who should be convicted of being unregis- 
tered Popish Priests, Popish Archbishops, &c., to greater 
penalties than those the}^ were liable to by the former acts. 
After the country had paid a sum of twenty pounds to the 
discoverer of every such offender, and been at great expense 
in prosecuting and convicting them of the offence, they are 
only liable to transportation, unless they return after being 
transported, but for so doing are punishable with death. 
Priests, Friars, &c., are no sooner transported but new ones 
come over from France, Spain, or Portugal, so that their 
number continues as great as ever. The common Irish will 
never become Protestant or well affected to the Crown while 
they are supplied with priests, friars, (fee, who are the foment- 
ers and disturbers here. So that some more effectual rem- 
edy to prevent priests and friars coming into this kingdom 
is perfectly necessary. The Commons proposed the marking 
of every person w^ho shall be convicted of being an unregis- 
tered priest, friar, &c., and of remaining in this kingdom 
after the 1st of May, 1720, with a large P, to be made with 
a red-hot iron on the cheek. The Council generally disliked 
that punishment, and have altered it into that of castration, 
which they are persuaded will be the most effectual remedy 
that can be found out to clear the nation of those disturbers 
of the peace and quiet of the kingdom, and would have been 
very well pleased to have been able to have found out any 
other punishment which might in their opinion have remedied 
the evil. If your Excellencies shall not be of the same sen- 
timents, they submit to your consideration whether the 
punishment of castration may not be altered to that pro- 
posed by the Commons, or some other effectual one which 
may occur to your lordships' consideration, but are fully con- 



APPENDIX. 295 

vinced there is an absolute necessity of making the law 
against unregistered priests and friars more severe than it 
now is. 

■' There are several other good clauses and provisions in 
this bill, of which the nation will receive great benefit, and 
which are very needful to be enacted into law. 

" We therefore desire your Excellencies will be pleased 
that it be returned in form under the Great Seal. — We are 
your Excellencies' most humble servants, 

''Bolton." (Charles Paulet, Marquis of Win- 
chester, Duke of Bolton.) 
" MiDDLETON." Cane, (Alan Broderick, Lord 

Middleton.) 
'' John Meath." (John Evans, Bishop of Meath.) 
'' John Clogher." (John Sterne, Bishop of Clo- 

gher.) 
" Santry." (Sir James Barry, Lord Santry.) 
'' (Sir) Oliver St. George. 
" E. Webster. 

" R. TiGIIE. 

'' To their Excellencies the Lords Justices of Great Brit- 
ain, Whitehall. 

" Under Cover — To Charles Delafoy, Secretary to their 
Excellencies the Lords Justices of Great Britain, Whitehall." 

Now for Mr. Fronde's treatment of this event. He knew 
he could not avoid it, or ignore it, or misstate it, as he has 
done so many other events. For, having met Mr. Froude 
shortly afterwards, making his searches in the State Paper 
Department, at Dublin Castle, I thoTight it right to tell him 
of my discovery. But he was already aware, so he told me, of 
the fact, having seei:|^the original letter in the Public Pecord 
Office, London. There was something, however, so extra- 
ordinary in the man's demeanor that I had my misgivings 
that he intended to misdeal with the transaction- in some 
way, so I published it in the Freeman's Journal of the 
28th April, 1871. I confess I had great curiosity to see 
how he would treat the matter in these circumstances. In 



296 APPENDIX. 

^^Tiie English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," he 
gives a chapter to this subject, and it is worth a longer ex- 
position (may I not say exposure ?) than your limited space 
can grant me. Let me first take his divisions of the chapter. 
It is Book iv.j chapter iv. : — 

" Intended severities against the Irish Priests — Fiction 
and Fact — The Hegistered and Unregistered Clergy — Un- 
certain dealings v/ith them by the Government — Need of 
more systematic methods — Alteration of the heads of a Bill 
by the Council — Singular character of that alteration — The 
Bill thrown out by the House of Lords — Further efforts in 
the Viceroyalty of the Duke of Grafton — Postponement 
of the question in England." 

Let it be remembered that I had bound him with such 
strong cords by publishing the entire letter beforehand that 
there was no possibility of his misstating the terms or the 
scope of it ; and then observe the writhings and twistings 
of this English viper, that, nursed in his youthful sickness by 
the poor peasantry of Mayo, and since that day a frequent 
visitor of Ireland, seeks to spit his venom against us at home 
by publishing this book, and then immediately rushes to 
America to endeavor to instill into the English race abroad 
the same hatred he and his colleagues are filled with at home, 
because we will not be their slaves. 

" In the midst of the heat and dust of the Wood hurri- 
cane (Wood's halfpence) the heads of a bill — if we are to 
believe the standard Irish historian " (says Froude), " were 
introduced, carried, earnestly recommended to the Home 
Government, of so extraordinary a ni^ure that, were the 
story true in the form in which it has come dovv^n to us, the 
attempt by an Englishman to understand the workings of 
Irish factions might well be abandoned as hopeless. ' In the 
year 1723, &c.,' says Plowden," (and then he gives ihQ ex- 
tract I have already given.) .''A statement so positively 
made," (he continues,) " has passed into the region of ac- 
knowledged certainties. It has been beaten into the metal 
of the historical thorcmghfare, and, being unquestioned, has 



APPENDIX, 297 

been moralized over by repentant Liberal politicians as il- 
lustrating the baneful effects of Protestant ascendancy." 

Any one would si=ippose from this opening that '^ the Irish 
historian " was the trickster and the cheat, and not the English 
historian the fraudulent knave. For it is nothing but knav- 
ery to try by the use of such terms to make the careless 
reader to believe beforehand that Plowden's statement 
differs as much as ''fiction" does from "fact" (according to 
one of the headings in the table of this chapter), instead of 
being substantially true, though not in form, as he had no 
means of access to the original and authentic documents. 
There is something more than " some chrysalis of fact," as 
Mr. Froude calls it, underlying Plowden's statement. 
This punishment, this shocking outrage upon decency and 
humanity, was actually recommended from Ireland to the 
Government in England, though Plowden did not know 
that it was a substitute for another and scarcely less inhu- 
man punishment, the branding of unregistered priests with a 
large '' P " with a red-hot iron on the clieek. 

Mr. Froude, with all the art of an orator, next introduces 
the priests, and divides them into two classes — the registered 
and the unregistered : — 

" The registered, for the most part, orderly, and well- 
disposed, the unregistered being the Pegulars, the Jesuits, 
the priests trained in Spain, France, and Flanders. These, 
he continues, fed continually on the recollection of their 
wrongs, and lived in constant hope of aid from the Catholic 
powers to root out the Protestants and shake off the yoke 
of Great Britain, receiving their instructions from Pome or 
Flanders, or the mock court of the Pretender. They were 
the persistent enemies of the English settlement, the recruit- 
ing sergeants, who gathered the thousands of eager Irish 
youths 'that were enlisted annually for the Catholic armies, 
the impassioned feeders of the dreams which were nourished 
in the national heart, of the recovery of the Irish race, the 
return of the Stuarts, and the expulsion of the detested 
Saxon. They were the originators of all the political 
13* 



298 APPENDIX. 

troubles which continued to distract Ireland. In Kerry, 
where the cause needed thoroughgoing men, the registered 
priests were put out of their cures as too soft and malleable, 
and their places taken by others of stronger national type " 
(observe the insult, the taunt to the nation), '^ who were the 
encouragers of the hougher and the ravisher, the smuggler 
and the Happaree — whose business was to render futile the 
efforts of the English settlers to introduce order, and enforce 
the law. If English authority Avas to be maintained, it was 
fair and reasonable to distinguish between the registered 
and unregistered priests." 

The purpose of all this rhetorical abuse of the unregis- 
tered clergy is as a preface to the branding bill and its 
shocking substitute, as suggested by the Lord Lieutenant 
and Privy Council, a Castration Act. The number of pre- 
lates, friars, and unregistered priests was daily growing 
larger. There was no sufficient penalty to prevent their re- 
turning. A Committee of the House of Commons accord- 
ingly drew a bill, which they considered, says Mr. Froude, 
would keep such persons at a safe distance. And among 
other clauses it contained a provision, "that every unregis- 
tered priest found in the kingdom after the 1st of May, 
1720, might" (says Mr. Froude) "be branded with a hot 
iron in the cheek, as a mark by which he might be identi- 
fied." He does not say (according to the fact) to be marked 
with a large " P," made v/ith a red-hot iron on the cheek. 
Now, hear this cynic on the necessity of the stronger pen- 
alty. " The Council," says Froude, " among whom was the 
Lord Lieutenant, the Chancellor, and two bishops, consid- 
ered the branding both too mild, and that it would fail in 
its effects. The hot iron had been already tried, he says, 
for the Kapparees, but the Rapparees made it a common 
practice to catch and brand other innocent persons to destroy 
the distinction. These four or five noble lords, " says 
Froude, (as if they were not the Lord Lieutenant and the 
Privy Council, the government in a great measure of Ire- 



APPENDIX. 299 

land !) " did certainly recommend as a substitute for the iron 
a penalty, which, was reported, rightly or wrongly, to have 
been used in Sweden with effect against the Jesuits." And 
here this brutal cynic pretends to relieve the priests of 
Ireland from its being supposed that this treatment was for 
the purpose of securing their chastity, by suggesting that this 
mutilation proceeded on another ground, and was for another 
end. 

But let us have done with the disgusting subject and 
disgusting man, who seems to be as lost to all sense of 
modesty as of humanity. He it is, who, in an article in the 
Keview he edits, in describing ^'A Fortnight in Kerry" 
(where, however, he spent two summers), foully and inde- 
cently libelled the memor}^ of O'Connell, the Liberator, and 
was then surprised to find that the people of Kerry looked 
coldly upon him. Does he take us for dogs ? That we are 
not men ? Or else that we are sunk so low as not to dare 
to resent the insults any Englishman may put upon us? 
And this libeller of our name and nation, of all things, 
indeed, sacred and profane, except the " Royal Irish " 
Sepoys, and the Ulster Janissaries, talks of spending his 
days among us ! Heaven forbid ! Girls of Ireland, remem- 
ber the outspoken approver of the murder of your poor 
tortured sister at Drogheda ! Mothers, think of the 
children used by the English as shields while fighting their 
way up the stairs of the church-towers ! Ladies, forget not 
the crowds of those of your own rank slaughtered in cold 
blood in the vaults beneath ! He sanctions it all. He is 
guilty of it all. Make the country too hot with your indig- 
nation to hold him. Men of Ireland, treat liim not to the 
penalty devised against your clergy, but brand him with the 
red-hot iron of tongue and pen on one cheek with a large 
'' L " as liar, on the other, with an " S " as slanderer of this 
nation. — Your obedient servant, 

John p. Phendergast. 



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